HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3, while StarWind is ranked #26. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 5.7% mindshare in HCI, compared to StarWind’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

HPE SimpliVity

Read 155 HPE SimpliVity reviews

11,316 Views
10,863 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual Tape Library

Read 6 StarWind Virtual Tape Library reviews

1,952 Views
1,249 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

HPE SimpliVity

StarWind Virtual Tape Library

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

HPE SimpliVity and StarWind Virtual Tape Library are competitors in hyper-converged infrastructure and data storage solutions. HPE SimpliVity leads with its comprehensive integration and competitive pricing, while StarWind stands out with specialized storage features.

Features: HPE SimpliVity integrates data protection, recovery, and deduplication, offering a robust solution in a single package. It simplifies management with inline deduplication and backup and recovery functionalities. StarWind Virtual Tape Library excels in storage efficiency and scalability, providing advanced data archiving and disaster recovery features. It allows virtual backup appliances with customizable LTO formats for flexible storage management.

Room for Improvement: HPE SimpliVity could enhance its customization capabilities and provide more detailed analytics tools. It can also benefit from expanding its application support beyond standard virtual environments. StarWind might improve its user interface for easier setup and management, reduce initial setup complexities, and broaden its integration with diverse cloud storage platforms for seamless hybrid solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE SimpliVity offers a straightforward deployment with comprehensive support, integrating well into existing IT infrastructures. StarWind provides flexible deployment options geared towards storage-specific needs, with dedicated support for detailed storage-related queries, appealing to specialized storage environments.

Pricing and ROI: HPE SimpliVity stands out for its cost-effectiveness by providing all features in a single integrated solution, yielding a positive return on investment through its extensive integration benefits. StarWind may have higher initial costs but is designed for significant long-term ROI, thanks to its customization capabilities and storage-specific optimizations, which offer enterprises greater flexibility and efficiency in storage handling.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

August 2026

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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 SimpliVity

Ranking in HCI

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

155

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

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (22nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 5.7%, down from 8.7% 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
Product	Mindshare (%)
HPE SimpliVity	5.7%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library	1.7%
Other	92.6%

HCI

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Lokman Hossen

Senior Manager, Enterprise Technology Services at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Has integrated solutions and rapid recovery made management smoother and more reliable

There is the latest update from HPE regarding HPE SimpliVity. For virtualization, HPE has to depend on other manufacturers, OEMs such as VMware or Hyper-V. Recently, HPE declared the VM essential virtualization solution. In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination. Functionality-wise, I am totally satisfied with HPE SimpliVity, but for improvement, if HPE integrates its own virtualization solution, this combination and integration will be beneficial because this integration can be configured with the cloud-based system. A VM can be uploaded to the cloud from this, which will be advantageous for backup to other sites.

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reviewer1414572

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

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is perfect. They explain to us the solution in a very clear and simple way. When we call them, they know the right answer and get the right person automatically."

"I like HPE SimpliVity's hard disk compression capabilities. The data is compressed into very little space or volume. I think that the principal value of HP SimpliVity is its capacity to compress the data, and I'm saving a lot of disk space using SimpliVity."

"HPE SimpliVity is simple, it's very friendly."

"As a small IT shop we spend less time managing our VMware infrastructure which gives us more time to focus on the front end of our business."

"The interface is very good and is very easy to navigate. You can find everything you need from one central place."

"The scalability is the best in the market."

"It makes it easy for our customers to manage all virtual machines and different workloads and be agile."

"What I appreciate most about HPE SimpliVity is its seamless integration of hardware."

More HPE SimpliVity pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."

"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."

"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."

"The solution made our backups way more reliable."

Cons

"This product doesn't scale - it's for small environments with two or three nodes, no more."

"There are some problems with support from HPE."

"Not a lean architecture in terms of anything."

"HPE SimpliVity could be more flexible and scalable. I don't feel SimpliVity is flexible or easily scalable because I still need to buy another server to add to my clusters. I can't just run or harvest and add to my solution. I need to buy another server. There are a lot of components that are not giving a lot of value to me right now. I also had a few problems with the built-in hard disk drives. I've had many issues with the harvest stripes that the servers use. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's unusual to have a physical failure on the HPE platform. I don't see any value at the software level, especially in the software that manages that solution. I was waiting for something, especially in the application layer that I would use, but that is all over VMware, and it doesn't have an integrated module that I can use to manage the server and all the instances."

"The solution really just lacks documentation."

"Sometimes it's a little bit difficult to get a hold of them, but once we get a hold of them, their technicians are great."

"We want HPE to do whatever they can do to improve, in order to make it a better customer experience."

"The biggest feature, which should be included, is some method to handle archival backup or cloud-based backup."

More HPE SimpliVity cons

"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."

"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 solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"One big advantage with SimpliVity is that you don't need the higher license cost or VMware to put together a simple SimpliVity solution."

"The pricing of HPE SimpliVity is comparable with other solutions so the price is good."

"The product is expensive."

"We spent $250,000 back in the day, and that was for two servers in my data center for that cluster. We then ran what they call an arbiter, and that took the place of a third server or the third node in the cluster. My DR site was one standalone server, and its horsepower was more than the two at my main site. It included my Cisco Switches that I needed to re-upgrade. It was comparable to what we were paying a year in VM."

"For most use cases, look to see if you can use all-flash as the price point, as it has come down significantly."

"HPE has decided to sell the solution in all-flash configurations, which may not be as cost effective for smaller mid-market enterprises."

"Cost of this product is high."

"Licensing costs are on a monthly basis. There are additional costs."

More HPE SimpliVity pricing and cost advice

"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."

"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

13%

Construction Company

11%

Legal Firm

11%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	67
Midsize Enterprise	49
Large Enterprise	80

No data available

Questions from the Community

How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?

HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?

Standalone HPE SimpliVity is more expensive than other OEMs and solutions. Regarding the software side, VMware is costing significantly more nowadays compared to other solutions in the market. The ...

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What needs improvement with HPE SimpliVity?

I haven't noticed anything that should be better in HPE SimpliVity, as I haven't done extensive work on this platform; I have only completed a couple of projects recently. Pricing could be an area ...

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE SimpliVity

August 2026

Download HPE SimpliVity product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

July 2026

Download StarWind Virtual Tape Library product report

Also Known As

SimpliVity, HPE HCI

No data available

Overview

HPE SimpliVity provides businesses with advanced features such as inline deduplication, compression, and instant recovery, enabling efficient backup and scalability. Its integration with VMware and centralized management fosters ease of use, establishing a streamlined IT infrastructure.

HPE SimpliVity stands as a comprehensive solution for organizations seeking a robust infrastructure capable of handling diverse workloads. Its features like integrated backup and disaster recovery ensure quick restores and high availability. Known for its efficient use of storage and data processing capabilities, it helps reduce operational costs. This system offers a reliable framework for virtualized environments, enhancing disaster recovery processes, IT operations, and application hosting while supporting workloads such as Oracle, SAP, and SQL.

What are HPE SimpliVity's key features?

Inline Deduplication: Minimizes data redundancy, enhancing storage efficiency.
Compression: Optimizes storage, reducing space requirements.
Instant Recovery: Facilitates rapid restoration of data and applications.
Centralized Management: Simplifies IT operations with unified management.
Scalable Architecture: Adapts to business growth seamlessly.

What benefits should users seek in HPE SimpliVity reviews?

Cost Reduction: Achieves savings through efficient data processing and storage utilization.
High Availability: Ensures consistent service and data accessibility.
VMware Integration: Provides compatibility and smooth operations in VMware environments.
Quick Disaster Recovery: Enables swift restoration processes for continued business operations.

Organizations deploy HPE SimpliVity mainly for virtualized environments, focusing on disaster recovery, IT operations, and application hosting. Extensively used in sectors for VDI, backups, and data center tasks, it supports major workloads like Oracle and SAP, simplifying infrastructure management while ensuring high availability.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

StarWind Virtual Tape Library enables seamless integration with existing backup systems, allowing for efficient data archiving to AWS, Amazon S3, and Wasabi. Supporting Veeam and LTO formats, it reduces storage costs with multiple cloud uploads and offers control over file chunk sizes.

StarWind Virtual Tape Library is a technical platform that provides valuable features for cost-effective data management and quick recovery. Although it can be complex to deploy, it supports cloud storage providers like Amazon and Wasabi, replacing manual tape management with automated processes. Businesses manage approximately 20TB for offsite storage, achieving a high success rate in tape replication. Clear documentation and enhanced user-friendliness could improve the user experience, along with faster throughput and better configuration guides.

What are the most important features of StarWind Virtual Tape Library?

Seamless Integration: Works effectively with Veeam and other backup systems.
Cloud Archiving: Supports AWS, Amazon S3, and Wasabi for data archiving.
LTO Format: Offers air-gapped security and control over file chunk sizes.
Cost Reduction: Reduces storage expenses with simultaneous cloud uploads.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in StarWind Virtual Tape Library?

Enhanced Data Protection: Ransomware protection through automated processes.
Cost Efficiency: Decreased costs with efficient cloud data management.
High Success Rate: Reliable offsite storage with proven tape replication success.
Performance: Strong performance and support resources facilitate ease of setup.

StarWind Virtual Tape Library is used by organizations for seamless data integration with Veeam and Backblaze, facilitating data backups and ransomware protection. By automating physical tape management, it supports cloud storage providers effectively, making it suitable for industries handling significant data volumes.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi

Buyer's Guide

HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

August 2026

Free Report: HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.

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