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HPE Alletra dHCI vs StarWind Virtual SAN 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 Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 5.0%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.0%, down from 2.1% 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…
Vladimir Simion - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support
The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration of AI tools for predictive analysis sets it apart from competitors."
"I love InfoSite. That gets you a lot of good detailed information."
"The technical support services are good."
"With regards to performance, configuration, and longevity it is upgradeable, which means it has a good TCO rate. These are valuable aspects to me."
"So far, the solution's performance is very good."
"Nimble is easy to use, but hard to install. Once it's installed, it's user-friendly. Reporting is another advantage because we get a lot of statistical forecasting. It helps us see into the future with that."
"The product provides zero downtime."
"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."
"Ten gigabit Ethernet compatibility, support, ease of use, and management are some positive features."
"The primary purpose of this software is to create a virtual SAN between local storage on Hyper-V hosts. I find this feature most valuable since it accomplishes this quite well."
"The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."
"The best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers in my experience are its simplicity to use, and it's easier to manage on a daily basis, which stands out to me."
"The license price is one of the cheapest in the market."
"The user interface for this application is amazing."
"The feature I have found most valuable in VSAN is its high availability capability."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support. They are excellent and you can learn a lot from the support team."
 

Cons

"I can tier my data in different storage on the cloud, but I cannot tier the data with HPE Alletra dHCI."
"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 product does not support file services."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI currently is promoting only VMware as a hypervisor, whereas if they can look into other OSs, such as KVM or Red Hat, it would be an improvement."
"The implementation process was problematic due to firmware incompatibilities and lengthy support intervention."
"The product’s performance needs improvement. It could also help with more environment monitoring and AI technologies to improve the performance and thresholds."
"The initial setup is a little bit complicated."
"I rate Nimble one out of 10 for ease of setup. Setting up Nimble Storage was a nightmare. It took us three months to deal with all the kinks and bugs. We had two people from HPE assisting us and two from our team."
"If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier."
"The cluster configuration is time-consuming and tedious."
"They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
"We ran into an issue with alerts."
"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."
"The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is expensive."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"The product is costly."
"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 solution’s pricing was very good."
"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"The prices are very high."
"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."
"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."
"We are happy with the price."
"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
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 do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
I have had no setup costs and no challenges with setup and installation for StarWind Virtual SAN. The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
There are times when the feedback in the event of an impending issue or an actual failure can be limited. The remediation steps are usually fairly simple to resolve the issue, but the management GU...
 

Also Known As

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Alletra dHCI vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.