HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 4, 2022
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
185
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
HPE SimpliVity
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
228
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 9.1%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 16.2%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
Unique Categories:
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9.2%
No other categories found
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

PL
Apr 12, 2022
Easy to use with good data replication and very helpful technical support
Our team was looking for a reliable and cost-effective solution for our VMware vSphere platform. VMware vSAN wasn't an option due to cost and scalability issues. Enabling storage high availability across multiple nodes was our top priority as we couldn't risk having any downtime in case a node was…
LT
Jun 25, 2019
Scalable and less complicated to deploy, but backup and DR feature sets need work
We use it for storage The scalability is its most valuable feature. It's also able to do stretch clustering. There are a lot of features that they need to improve on, such as the backup and DR feature sets. I would also like to see it able to restore item levels, especially for databases. They…
GL
Sep 2, 2018
Will help us implement our VDIs, while offering any-device, anywhere, anytime mobility
We actually involved VMware from the beginning. We brought in Nutanix, Simplivity, and vSAN technicians, as well as integration with our hardware platforms. But the true key was bringing those guys in, helping us set up the best environment, and seeing exactly what our endpoint was going to look like with our business integration. That was better than, "Yay, we can deploy 40 VDIs in 10 seconds." What does that do for the environment we're currently existing in? So for them to help us set up as a true test in our actual environment, that was a huge help, from all three that we tested. It was really impressive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The failover redundancy is why we bought this product and it has never let us down."
"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is a very mature software that supersedes its capabilities with my use cases."
"The product gave us a cost-effective way to deploy a highly available server environment."
"It has reduced the amount of switching, network connections, etc., because the converged StarWind Virtual SAN allows us to connect high-speed network interfaces between different boxes instead of having to connect SANs via the network, then connect those two clusters together."
"The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."
"The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems."
"StarWind support has been great in helping resolve other issues not caused by their software."
"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."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the backup rate and the backup transfer."
"Its deduplication and backup functions are reliable."
"It doesn't take long to mount the entire VM somewhere and then copy it. That's one of the things that I like about SimpliVity's deduplication and compression. I can literally stand up a backup in minutes. It is like no time at all. They've got pretty phenomenal deduplication and compression. Within SimpliVity, one of the things that they do is deduplication and compression on ingestion. So, on the front side, everything is deduplicated and compressed, which, of course, adds some overhead to their solution. For instance, in my environment today, I've got roughly 30 terabytes of raw storage, and with their deduplication and compression, I'm over the 300 terabyte threshold with my active servers and all my backups."
"Its performance is quite good, and it is also easy to use. One of the biggest benefits is the included backup solution."
"My day-to-day experiences are better now that my backups are no longer running into production."
"It is simple and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the storage virtualization layer, together with the built-in backups."
"It is scalable, overall. If you need to add storage, it makes it easy to scale by adding additional hard drives into the existing servers or you can add storage by just adding more servers."
"The technical support is good. We are always thankful for the technical support from VMware. They are very supportive when we have a technical problem."
"VMware has been around for a long time are are doing a decent job at catching up with the latest technologies i.e. bringing in kubernetes and containerization. Overall, this is a great tool for virtualization."
"vSAN is integrated into VMware."
"Easy-to-use, and easy-to-scale product."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We find it easy to deliver this solution."
"Everyone uses virtualization to more efficiently utilize hardware resources. That's the main point of vSAN and VMware."
 

Cons

"There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA."
"The GUI deserves a little love."
"StarWind offers the Enterprise-level high availability (HA), deployed and easily configured .maintain and update and with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings a the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost effective point" Having used Starwind Virtual SAN for many years both for clients and for internal systems it has always done exactly what it set out to do, provide a cost effect way to run a HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor, but it is most effective with Hyper-V, simple, easy to use, -.software monitoring should be web based to be reachable from any workstation in VLAN."
"It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."
"The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works."
"The system performs as expected, but we're always looking for performance improvements regarding the best utilization of NVMe disks."
"It is not very clear within the StarWind Management Console or the StarWind support documentation how to perform maintenance on a single node in a two-node HA cluster."
"It would be nice to add the ability to use raw partitions instead of file containers."
"The solution must provide other hypervisors."
"Not being able to apply ESXi patches as needed has always been a concern, but it has not become a big issue."
"In the next release of the solution, they should make updating the solution easier. Currently, we have HPE doing it for us but I would like to be able to do it."
"Its deployment should be easier."
"The product should be competitive with other brands."
"The initial setup was complex because it was a new solution."
"Increased storage capacity for big data, something that we have not had."
"We have had some failures out-of-the-box. We have had some failures with the OmniStack module. One thing that we didn't fully understand was how much of the internal memory was used up by the OmniStack piece, which basically makes up SimpliVity."
"If the support could be provided more quickly, it would be very helpful."
"VMware vSAN needs to improve its features because other solutions have more advanced features."
"This solution is not great for large file shares/object/rich media repository."
"Disaster recovery needs to be improved, when there is a crisis, there is a problem with what is the quickest way to get out of it."
"Some intelligence can be added to the newest version to provide more flexibility between storage tiers."
"There is a lot that VMware could improve from a marketing perspective. The cloud is still new for many people, so extending storage should be effortless. It shouldn't be so complicated to extend the storage so workloads can access it no matter where they go."
"The interface is a little complicated, it could be simplified with more graphical gadgets. We have many servers, and the built-in functions, such as rate configuration, are a bit complex."
"I lose a node in a cluster vSAN, which is also used as a cluster HA. I lose not only the storage part, which is not necessarily serious (depending on the configuration of the vSAN cluster), but on the other hand, I lose also a node of Compute, which can make things complicated quickly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."
"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."
"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."
"Its licensing is yearly."
"For the VMware licensing, it is approximately $10,000 a year."
"The solution is affordable and quite reasonably priced in terms of the product one gets."
"It is not expensive. We bought its license for two years. For support, we pay yearly."
"Upfront costs seems high at first look, but after analyzing all the benefits of SimpliVity, we have come out ahead."
"We did get some quotes from Nutanix, and they were ballparks. So, it is not cheap, and there is nothing free, but those two were comparable."
"Cost of this product is high."
"In terms of the licenses, customers do not actually get any benefit."
"It could be cheaper."
"Clients have to pay for VMware vSAN licensing based on the number of CPUs. The purchases would be lifetime or perpetual, but you need to have support, e.g. the support is negotiated from one, two, three, or four years."
"I would like to use more advanced models of the solution but the price needs to be reduced. There are some extra costs for this solution including a license."
"I feel the pricing to be reasonable."
"This solution requires the purchase of a license."
"What made us go with this solution was price point. When you can utilize existing storage infrastructure, and not have to continually purchase new SAN products out there that are going up in price as time goes by, then it's a wonderful thing."
"There is a license to use this solution and we pay approximately $30,000 annually. There were not any additional fees required other than the license. The solution is expensive."
"Enterprise customers can customize their licenses according to their own needs and budget."
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Answers from the Community

NC
Mar 2, 2022
Mar 2, 2022
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 valuable features, but the most important thing for us is that it provides a complete solution. We could set it up very quickly, and the interface is intuitive. It has a central dashboard, and you can...
See 2 answers
Nov 1, 2021
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 valuable features, but the most important thing for us is that it provides a complete solution. We could set it up very quickly, and the interface is intuitive. It has a central dashboard, and you can find everything from there. HPE SimpliVity made our virtualization stack so simple. You can combine it with an accelerator card, so the number of writes is reduced significantly. Cloning or backup VMs is a breeze because the system only changes the data you need to restore or clone. Additionally, it works well with Veeam, which we already have. Cost-wise, it is very reasonably priced. However, if you want to add more memory, you’ll need to pay additional licensing costs. We found the upgrades to be a bit complex. We tried VMware vSAN too. One of its advantages is the easy setup. VMware vSAN supports all-flash memory and integrates with all VMware products, which helps run operations smoothly. The best feature might be its scalability. VMware vSAN scales up and scales out very easily. It is easy to manage, too. There are downsides to VMware vSAN, though. For instance, support is very slow. It doesn’t work well with high IOP either. Finally, you cannot isolate virtual machines for deduplication and compression. So, if you are looking for high performance, we found VMware vSAN to be too expensive for the value it provides. Conclusions VMware provides good storage as a service for companies that already work with other VMware products or are looking for a reliable SAN. But their poor support and lack of virtual machine-level features made us decide on HPE SimpliVity for our hyper-convergence needs.
Mar 2, 2022
The answer depends on what is it that you are looking for in your solution... Both Simplivity & vSAB are software-defined storage technology-wise. Now the second important thing is both create a blob/object storage out of a set of disks.  Ideally, both these solutions can't compare to real-world storage requirements where the need is block storage at the lowest latency. Most of the time both technologies are used for generalized VM workloads and not for specialized workloads. vSAN from VMware leverages Erasure code for maintaining the availability of data on the soft SAN. This architecture is referred to as RAIN - a minimum of 3 nodes are recommended in such architecture to run the storage show effectively. Simplivity, on the other hand, leverages a combination of RAID + RAIN wherein the storage availability is unimpacted even if you start with 2 Nodes.  IOPS and latency are the issues with both solutions. Application performance is dependent on disk latency & throughput too. So, depending on the scenario, you need to tailor your solution. What my point is: it generally depends on workload type, data volume and performance of the VM platform that you are planning for. Both the technologies are great, People use vCloud Suite more as compared to Simplivity globally, that too is a proven fact. Then it depends on the size of a company and the workloads you wanna run... tools and processes around which your operation is defined and built.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
48%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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) combin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
Make the most of your 30-day trial license, and if needed, you should contact the sales department of StarWind to ext...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The dashboard is functional, but it could benefit from a more modern and visually appealing design. A facelift would ...
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 resea...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
HPE SimpliVity is much more affordable than Nutanix or VMware vSAN, which are HPE's typical competitors. I don't have...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is bes...
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE SimpliVity vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.