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HPE Hyper Converged vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library 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 Hyper Converged
Ranking in HCI
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in HCI
17th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 3.2%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

GosayeErko - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure management simplifies for clients with integrated interface and enhanced resource utilization
Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and most clients are skipping VMware because VMware has changed its licensing method. If HPE starts to use its own hypervisor for its HCI solutions, it will be the best solution. We push a different vendor for the backup and replication, so we only use the HCI, then we use Veeam for the backup and replication section.
KellyVon Der Heyden - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalable solution with a good technical support team
We use the solution for data backups and ransomware protection The solution is compatible with cloud storage platforms, such as Amazon S3. Also, it efficiently reduces the storage cost for archiving. The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough. We have been…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features of HPE Hyper Converged that are most effective and beneficial are its simplicity as well as its scalability."
"It provides unmatched performance, productivity and reliability."
"The most valuable feature was its time to delivery."
"The features of HPE Hyper Converged that are most effective and beneficial are its simplicity as well as its scalability."
"It's a very complete product with residencies to protect data and secure it end-to-end. It includes storage, computing, and networking, offering a fully ten-key solution."
"The most valuable features are resiliency and data protection."
"One of the solution's strong points is the deduplication capabilities of SimpliVity."
"The most valuable feature is the in-built backup system. The backup speed is also excellent."
"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."
"It is a stable solution."
"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
 

Cons

"We have faced some challenges when upgrading. With Hyper Converged, you have to fully upgrade because there are no incremental upgrades available in this solution. For example, let's say we have two nodes. If we want to upgrade storage, we also need to upgrade computing. That means a full upgrade EME."
"Though with HPE Hyper Converged, you get everything, the documentation part is very much required, especially if you opt for the solution's subscription-based licensing model."
"I would like to see more deduplication."
"The solution needs to add a module or plugin of vCenter for clear monitoring and insights."
"Could be more secure and more economical."
"I would like to see a more intuitive, user-friendly UI."
"I think that OneView should be replaced by something else for the management."
"Scalability is an issue because it becomes very expensive. When you need to upgrade memory, you have to upgrade memory across the nodes. Suppose a customer has gone with a three-node HCI solution, then to increase the memory, you have to do it across the three nodes."
"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."
"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solutions cost us a lot."
"The entire solution is packaged with all licenses and support."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."
"With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed."
"I would rate the price at seven out of ten. There are no additional licensing fees, but it would be cheaper to go with a dHCI solution."
"We have a very good return on investment due to data savings through compression and deduplication methods. It simplifies IT management and enhances security, including the end-to-end security of the IT data engine. The product is complete, simple, and provides visibility."
"Pricing with Dell EMC is double the price which I paid for HPE. However, in the end, Dell EMC is double in performance. This is not an apple to apple comparison though, as I have a four node from Dell EMC and a three node."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The solution is cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HPE Hyper Converged?
The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?
The product is intermediate in price, neither expensive nor cheap. We are talking about an on-premises solution without licensing for years. Currently, licensing is required for VMs and CPU cores. ...
What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?
It is very complicated to migrate to another domain. When we have one domain and want to move to another domain, we need to destroy the cluster on the HPE Hyper Converged system, and we need to cha...
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Also Known As

HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha
Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Hyper Converged vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.