HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
StarWind Logo
6,093 views|1,966 comparisons
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Logo
4,247 views|3,688 comparisons
Dell Technologies Logo
43,049 views|25,940 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE Hyper Converged and VxRail based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail Report (Updated: September 2023).
745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The ability to keep data accessible even in the event of hardware failures is highly valued, as it ensures business continuity.""The failover redundancy is why we bought this product and it has never let us down.""The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well.""The customer support provided by StarWind is excellent.""Training is also easy as it is just one system to learn.""We have been able to use more on-prem hardware to reduce cost and also use old disks that we do not trust enough for ordinary RAID or usage.""Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage.""StarWind Virtual SAN is a highly flexible solution, as it can be deployed on physical servers or on top of virtual machines running on hypervisors such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"One of the solution's strong points is the deduplication capabilities of SimpliVity.""It is a scalable solution.""The solution has good backup resolution updates.""Hyper Converge is easier to manage and performs better than traditional infrastructure.""One of the good features would be the fast backup solution Hyper Converged offers, which is more efficient compared to other vendors.""It is a stable solution...Those who want flexibility, ease of use, and a simple support system can opt for HPE.""HPE Hyper Converged is stable.""No concerns or issues with stability."

More HPE Hyper Converged Pros →

"Our clients value being able to upgrade with one click or a few clicks.""VxRail is an agile solution with easily scalable, simplify operations with software driven automation and lower operational cost.""It's somewhat hard to speak about specific features, but I like VxRail's simplicity and ease of use. It's a decent solution for customers with a small footprint. If you're operating a big data center, it's not easy to position VxRail or HCI solutions, but when you have a small customer managing many different components, it's easier to work only with one solution.""Depending on your architecture type, it's simple to manage and implement VxRail compared to other solutions. That's why most of our customers use it.""Initial setup is straightforward, as everything is pre-installed.""The ease of deployment and management of the solution are the most valuable aspects of the product.""VxRail can manage the whole cluster at the same time, so it's easy to expand. VxRail has more features vSAN ReadyNodes that make it easier to implement from scratch.""The initial setup is simple."

More VxRail Pros →

Cons
"I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things.""StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used.""It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery.""The initial setup got a little confusing at a few points with differences between the VMware version in documentation vs the latest, etc.""One main thing this product needs to work on is reporting.""The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved.""I would like an automated installation/configuration despite the fact that their service is very collaborative, a customer should be able to deploy the solution by themselves.""You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"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.""This solution is very costly.""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.""Could be more secure and more economical.""Installation and setup could be easier.""If the solution could further compress the data, it would use less storage.""Its technical support services could be faster.""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."

More HPE Hyper Converged Cons →

"They need to keep upgrading the environment and improving automation so that the solution keeps getting better and better.""What I find very valuable is VxRail's life cycle management. The life cycle management takes care of everything from firmware to the actual upgrading of the hypervisor and keeps everything up to level.""We used an integrator team for the implementation of the solution. The one person who takes care of the maintenance of VxRail, such as upgrading the software. The upgrading takes too long. We have many nodes which takes a long time, they need to improve the speed of the upgrades""Some of the features of the hyperconverged infrastructure could be integrated with external storage. Right now, for example, if I have surveillance going, I need to purchase very cheap storage. So, an integration between the hyperconverged infrastructure and external storage would be good.""Dell wants to implement the disaster site in the new year, but they haven't decided yet. I hope we will have the opportunity to sell VxRail with this disaster site. It is not really clear at the moment, but hopefully, we will get some good news from the customers in the new year.""I would like to see more solutions for satellite capabilities where we can put it into smaller locations and still have the redundancy that we have with a larger cluster.""The update for the graphics integration and the media drivers isn't included in the VxRail update.""It could be improved by having more information on the integration portion of ACI."

More VxRail Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
  • "If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "If I'm comparing with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience."
  • "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."
  • "It is a cost-effective solution."
  • "The entire solution is packaged with all licenses and support."
  • "HPE Hyper Converged is an affordable 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."
  • "The product's pricing is very competitive because HPE provides a buyback policy to users...Users can make either monthly or yearly payments towards the licensing cause of the solution."
  • More HPE Hyper Converged Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Price is a bit of a challenge, particularly if you want extra features or higher performance."
  • "It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."
  • "More cost-effective than Nutanix."
  • "VxRail is an expensive solution."
  • "Fees vary by license type."
  • "The license is a bundle with the hardware. It comes with the license and five-year support."
  • "VxRail is expensive because it's based on VMware and V-SAN. The price is not the cheapest. The technical support is expensive, but it is a good service."
  • "When compared with others, the price is very reasonable."
  • More VxRail Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment.
    Top Answer:The Premium ProActive service price is a little high, yet worth the price.
    Top Answer:It is hard to find adequate technical documentation on their support website. However, they have a fantastic technical… more »
    Top Answer:It's a very complete product with residencies to protect data and secure it end-to-end. It includes storage, computing… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing is very competitive. I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten. There are no additional costs to the… more »
    Top Answer:One of the things that can be improved is that today, is supporting VMware, maybe as a hypervisor. But it would be good… more »
    Top Answer:HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one,… more »
    Top Answer:While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an… more »
    Top Answer:VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS
    VCE VxRail
    Learn More
    Overview

    StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

    HPE Hyper Converged solutions combine intuitive software with the reliability of a world class platform to deliver cloud-like simplicity to your business.

    Now, IT can become an internal service provider to end-users by quickly delivering the resources they need for application development and consumption. With HPE Hyper Converged systems companies can operate with cloud efficiency to simplify IT operations with one comprehensive control panel to deploy, monitor, analyze and update – with a single generalist; consume with cloud flexibility to deliver a cloud-like experience, with multi-tenant workspaces that eliminate stranded resources and flexes on demand; and deploy at cloud speed to empower developers and lines-of-business with a self-service portal that can instantly compose and recompose VMs in minutes. Built-in enterprise grade features, such as performance and resiliency enable HPE Hyper Converged systems to easily handle a wide variety of virtualized workloads, including general purpose virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and cloud.

    VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance based on VMware virtual SAN Software and is jointly engineered and built with VMware, for VMware, to enhance Vmware. VxRail software-defined architecture simplifies compute, storage, virtualization, and management. It will safeguard performance, reliability, and flexibility across your organization with a broad range of workloads and applications from business-critical to next-gen. With VxRail, you are covered.

    VxRail is a single turn-key appliance that is a validated, fully integrated, pre-configured,  pre-tested solution and offers non-disruptive scaling. Every node includes compute storage and IO. All-flash configurations can contain between 12-28 cores per node. The storage capacity options run from 7.6 TB to 19TB with either 256 GB or 512GB of memory. Hybrid appliances may have 6-20 cores per node, 3.6 TB to 10 TB of storage capacity, and 24GB to 256 GB of memory. 

    VxRail offers high availability fail-over, an active/active stretch cluster, and VSan Kernal integration. VxRail is a power-edged server with APIs built on automation. There are over 15 million different combinations of hardware available with VxRail. VxRail provides a simple, cost-effective solution that solves a large range of use cases. Additionally, you also get a mixed workloads automated system that is backed with fully automated system updates, and complete end-to-end lifecycle management all in a single two-rack appliance. 

    VxRail is a value-added suitable solution for distributed small to mid-sized enterprises, remote offices, private clouds, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). You choose the deployment option that best suits your organizational needs, from appliance to integrated rack offerings, with or without networking, and it will be delivered to you, ready to deploy out-of-box. 

    If you know VMware, you know VxRail.

    VxRail Features and Benefits

    • Seamlessly accelerate deployment to a hybrid cloud 
    • Fast data center modernization
    • Create developer-ready Kubernetes platforms
    • Powerful performance and reliability
    • Improve and simplify operational efficiency
    • Excellent integration 
    • Save time
    • Reduce costs

    Reviews from Real Users

    VxRail is an all-in-one solution: "You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."

    VxRail is remarkable: “The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail…

    VxRail is a powerful performer: “...VxRail delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated.” 

    Offer
    30-days for free

    Try it today

    Learn more about HPE Hyper Converged
    Learn more about VxRail
    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha
    World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company9%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company25%
    Computer Software Company19%
    Security Firm6%
    Construction Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government11%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Insurance Company8%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government10%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business63%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise61%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HPE Hyper Converged is ranked 12th in HCI with 12 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 38 reviews. HPE Hyper Converged is rated 8.4, while VxRail is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of HPE Hyper Converged writes " Ensures end-to-end data security with redundancy measures and provides visibility into the system but node expansion challenges". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "It's built on platforms that have been in the industry for more than 15 years, so it's very stable". HPE Hyper Converged is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Dell PowerFlex, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series. See our HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail report.

    See our list of best HCI vendors.

    We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.