Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

HPE Alletra dHCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

HPE Alletra dHCI
Ranking in HCI
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind HyperConverged App...
Ranking in HCI
14th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.8%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Antonin Pavlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Effortless upgrades with one-click feature while new server deployment needs a smoother process
I have a data center, and all the servers are connected to HPE Alletra dHCI. I use it for data management with VMware running on the servers The most valuable feature of HPE Alletra dHCI is the one-click upgrade function, which allows all drivers and services to be downloaded to all servers…
Russ Le Puill - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with improved speed and resilience
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"HPE Alletra dHCI was good because we could have the vVols, which we are using for our production server, with the snapshots."
"The solution works well."
"We have the ability to increase the storage without any additional costs."
"Simply being able to move objects and the duplication feature have been quite effective."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Nimble Storage is a capable platform with high availability."
"HPE's InfoSight software, which does the comparative analysis and artificial intelligence built-in in the box, and with Nimble they do well against the competition. Additionally, the dashboards are good."
"The latency is very low."
"The hosts came preconfigured, and it was plug-and-play."
"The hardware footprint is great. We've got two 2U servers which replaced four 2U servers. Granted, they were about three years old at that point, but we actually increased our processing capacity by about 50 percent while keeping our storage capacity about the same. We've actually been able to downgrade to a half rack from a full rack because we've gotten rid of some of our network equipment and some of our additional storage arrays."
"It is a safe, fast, and cost-effective storage system that improved our systems to have zero downtime."
"Reliability and overall uptime are key as we're also hosting client environments in addition to our own."
"The sales process is easy."
"The option to deploy a hyper-converged system without an expensive storage switch was a benefit."
"We opted for 24-hour monitoring and support, which has already paid for itself."
"Customer service has been excellent. Any questions we have had have been answered quickly."
 

Cons

"Their documentation needs to be simpler to read yet more detailed so it's easy to compare models and easier for clients to pick."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI's website does not open properly or work consistently."
"The solution could improve by providing better file-level restoration and DVX system options."
"Software upgrade is still more complicated than the competitors, so that's an area of improvement."
"The implementation process was problematic due to firmware incompatibilities and lengthy support intervention."
"The only issue I'm really running into is we have a SQL server that we're having a lot of high IO latency on one of my drives and it's my data drive from my SQL server. It's not really giving me any good information as to where that latency is coming from, so that's what I'm trying to track down and troubleshoot."
"The deployment of a new server could be improved."
"It can be made cheaper."
"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."
"There is room for improvement in the setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."
"Most meetings are done via Zoom, and I'm sure you could switch to a text based conversation if needed as they seem like a very accommodating team. It's not something I would worry about if you are a potential client."
"This product is not one hundred percent enterprise-ready, so it is more suitable for SMB."
"That situation, where Dell EMC servers were going down, has been my only real difficulty... it ended up being something that the wider audience of Dell EMC was actually aware of as an issue. Neither the StarWind technicians nor the Dell EMC technicians were able to actually identify that problem sooner than a week or so... The communication between Dell EMC support and StarWind support, in that particular scenario, left something to be desired, for me. I did express those concerns to StarWind and they were very responsive to that."
"We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed."
"The monitoring and reporting console can be improved in the sense that it can have more information on it."
"It would be nice to have some kind of GUI interface implemented to give you an overall view of the system's health at a glance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"The product is very affordable."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The prices are very high."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is much cheaper than the competition and has value proposition. Customers can see an ROI in three months. There are no additional costs, and VMware licenses can be reutilized."
"The cost of the licensing is reasonable."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
"Its cost was reasonable."
"I was able to bring the price per year down by going out to a five-year plan."
"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."
"There is a bit of a start-up cost. Having never used HCAs before, I was reluctant to buy it. I would suggest that you jump in and do it, as I wish I hadn't wasted so much time."
"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
"The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
Pricing is rated at six, which is normal. The price is appropriate for the capabilities and features that the customers receive.
What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately. When extending or when servers are already present, normal Alletra systems are more suitable. dHCI projects ofte...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.
What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our inf...
What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...
 

Also Known As

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Sears Home and Franchise Business
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Alletra dHCI vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.