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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
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in HCI
26th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 2.4%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 1.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Hyper Converged2.4%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library1.7%
Other95.9%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

PD
IT Project Manager at Intesa Sanpaolo
Has enabled me to simplify complex infrastructures and support virtualization projects with efficiency
In HP, I have been on board on a project study until 2018 and we studied the server rack model that supports HPE Hyper Converged board and Windows configuration. HPE Hyper Converged is excellent because it can avoid the usage of storage area network. For example, if you have three servers in parallel in a battery, a cluster, you can share the local storage for each server in a hyper-converged virtual storage without the storage area network. The architecture here has a simple physical structure. The logical configuration is complex, but the physical infrastructure is simpler than the old legacy cluster with the storage area network. The possibility of issues is minor. There is a very high level of redundancy and very high level of performance distribution and parallel usage of resources. It functions as a grid configuration. HPE Hyper Converged can be improved by replacing the old infrastructure based on legacy clusters and old servers. It can replace and dispose of legacy storage that is very expensive to maintain and has great dimensions to manage. You can dispose of big storage to have a battery of local servers with local storage in a hyper-converged architecture. This is not the future, it is the new technology. It is probably the best solution for cloud service and also for companies that require several virtualized environments. The foundation for using the hyper-converged solution is virtualization. First, every company must switch from physical setup to virtual configuration. Second, HPE Hyper Converged is a technology upgraded to avoid local big storage, storage area network, and complex fiber cabling from server to storage. You can eliminate everything and just manage the battery of servers in hyper-converged configuration as they share and are able to share the local storage as main big storage area network.
reviewer1414572 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
Flexible and reliable with helpful support
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. Who would not like things to be faster? It would be nice if StarWind could come up with a best practice document for configuration. I had to do some playing around in my environment with test runs to get the configuration that really allowed for the maximum amount of throughput that I was going to get with the software. Once I had figured out what worked best, the solution was rather fast for backing up 30+ TB of data

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the solution's strong points is the deduplication capabilities of SimpliVity."
"The features I've found most valuable are manageability, integrated backup solution SimpliVity, and deep integration."
"The performance is good compared to the cost of the solution."
"The HA, which means I have a copy of the VMs always available, and the moment a VM is down, the system tries to power it on again."
"Hyper Converge is easier to manage and performs better than traditional infrastructure."
"Hyper Converged is highly stable because it's installed on our VMware platform."
"Hyper-convergence is the most valuable aspect of the solution. We can avoid downtime when there's maintenance or updates needed. Also, we have homogenous hardware, so we have a lot of trust in the solution's reliability."
"Looking back after a year and a half, I really think that it was the right decision and it has made my job easier."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"The support that they provide is excellent, with 24 hours a day seven days a week support, and all the engineers and the support staff know the solution very well."
"We simply replicate our backups from Veeam to the virtual tape library that StarWind implements, while magically transporting those to B2 for our offsite backup requirements."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"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 most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
"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."
 

Cons

"The product must provide more storage capability."
"Providing local technical support and improving the price are areas this service needs to consider improving."
"Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and many clients are skipping VMware due to its changed licensing method."
"We've had to do a power cycle to bring it all the way down, bring it back up for power outages, A/C shut-downs of our DC office, but it hasn't presented a problem."
"In the Hyper Converged environment, some of the brands only support the OS VMware and not Hyper-V from Microsoft or even Red Hat or KVM."
"The pricing could be improved. It's quite an expensive solution."
"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."
"The price can be improved. We would like to see support for some open source virtualization technology like for example KVM."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"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 initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"In practice, it is somewhat technical to deploy and manage, but overall it gets the job done."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price per value compared to other solutions, like Nutanix and SimpliVity. (We made the deal before approval of HPE SimpliVity deal)."
"The solution is expensive - not only the hardware costs but server costs too. And the more you scale, the more expensive it gets."
"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."
"There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"If I'm comparing with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Legal Firm
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
The initial setup of HPE Hyper Converged requires study and a comprehensive understanding of virtualization. The second step is to follow instructions step by step, as it can be complex to understa...
What is your primary use case for HPE Hyper Converged?
I have several years of experience in storage area network and IT infrastructure, working with Pure Secure, Pure Secure Storage, EMC Square, HP, and Lenovo storage and other brands, several other b...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.