HPE Alletra Storage vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

HPE Alletra Storage provides on-premises cloud-like operations, delivering high-performance NVMe drives, VMware integration, data deduplication, and compression. It's known for simplicity, management ease, and capacity efficiency.

HPE Alletra Storage stands out for its scalability and comprehensive features, benefiting diverse workloads and scenarios. Users report faster IOPS, reduced provisioning time, and fewer support tickets. Its guarantee of data availability and strong support network ensure high operational reliability and cost-efficiency. However, it could improve NVMe compatibility, setup, and connectivity. Enhancing intuitive design and monitoring capabilities while reducing internet dependency and refining integration with existing software would increase user satisfaction. Cost efficiency and streamlined licensing are ongoing concerns, with demands for file-based storage, better scalability, and customizability improvements.

• Cloud-like Operations: Provides on-premises cloud-like experiences.
• High-Performance NVMe: Utilizes NVMe drives for enhanced speed.
• VMware Integration: Seamlessly integrates with VMware environments.
• Data Deduplication: Efficiently reduces data redundancy.
• Compression: Optimizes storage capacity through compression.

• Reliability: High data availability guarantee and strong support network.
• Scalability: Benefits workloads with flexible scaling options.
• Speed: Reports of faster IOPS and reduced provisioning time.
• Efficiency: Fewer support tickets and efficient resource management.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Operational reliability leads to lower costs.

HPE Alletra Storage is widely used in virtualization, VMware, and data center block storage, particularly in financial and healthcare sectors. Organizations utilize it for VM storage, cloud infrastructure, and databases. It supports VDI, hyper-converged infrastructure, and high-performance computing. Businesses leverage its capabilities for data backup, compression, and deduplication, integrating seamlessly with existing environments to meet enterprise storage needs with high throughput and low-latency performance.

For SMB and Enterprises who are looking for high performance primary storage for server virtualization, VDI, database and Big Data scenarios, or inexpensive secondary backup tier, our solution is StarWind Storage Appliance. It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, and associated software into an easily scalable storage platform.

Additionally, the appliance features an optional gateway to Azure public cloud, which helps to implement an effective Disaster Recovery plan or meet regulatory requirements. StarWind SA scales up by adding individual disks and flash modules, or JBODs, while adding ready controller nodes allows scaling out. 

StarWind SA targets those, who need high-performance primary storage or secondary storage for backup. In case there is a whole virtualization infrastructure to build from scratch, StarWind HCA will come in handy. Otherwise, if all the required hardware is present, StarWind Virtual SAN will be enough to build a high-performance virtualization setup.