HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 15, 2022

We performed a comparison between HPE SimpliVity and VxRail based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: For the most part, users of HPE SimpliVity feel that the tasks of configuring, deploying, and maintaining HPE SimpliVity are complex and require certified staff from HPE. VxRail’s deployment, on the other hand, is considered to be easy and straightforward.
  • Features: HPE SimpliVity’s users find it to be stable and point out that it has many valuable features, including an easy-to-navigate centralized interface and automatic backup and replication. However, reviewers say that HPE SimpliVity’s ability to integrate with other platforms could definitely be improved. Furthermore, users feel the speed at which it recovers and backs up data is slow and could be improved.

    Among VxRail’s most valuable features are its ability to be managed centrally through VxRail Manager, it’s ability to  be upgraded with ease, and its high level of stability. Reviewers of VxRail feel that it should be able to integrate        hyper-cloud, which would enable users to scale in and out of the cloud. They also feel that it should offer a larger      number of integrations for other digital products. Finally, they feel that the software is difficult for somebody that    does not have a tech background to use.
  • Pricing: Users of both solutions note that they are expensive to use. One user of HPE SimpliVity specifically states that it is more expensive than VxRail.
  • Service and Support: Users of both solutions note that, for the most part, they are supported by excellent technological support teams.

Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, VxRail seems to be the superior solution. Our reviewers found HPE SimpliVity to be more difficult to deploy and more expensive to purchase than VxRail.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE SimpliVity vs. VxRail Report (Updated: March 2023).
690,226 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
"VSAN works great; it's very easy to install, configure, and manage.""The license price is one of the cheapest in the market.""StarWind allows us to move virtual machines from one physical host to another, which greatly reduces the downtime required for maintenance.""StarWind saved us about 80% of our storage costs over our old solution.""vSAN we found was simple to set up, easy to configure and manage and allows us to achieve storage redundancy.""The biggest benefit was that it allowed us to provide SAN services on a limited hardware budget.""It integrates (fully) with VMware and Veeam, my hypervisor, and backup vendors, so for me, all the puzzle pieces simply fit and work smoothly.""The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"The configuration capabilities are good.""The backup feature is valuable, and replication is also valuable. It is very quick and easy to use.""It's much more simple than Nutanix and other hyper-converged solutions, at least from our point of view.""HPE SimpliVity is simple, it's very friendly.""I like SimpliVity because it can be adapted for small clients or the biggest ones. It's flexible.""SimpliVity helps us to manage and has made deduplication work really well.""Best for companies just starting out.""We have not had any problem with customer support at SimpliVity."

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"I have found that the admin deployment, monitoring off-premises, and the many services important features. Additionally, the solution has good integration.""VxRail performs well in the VDI environment.""The scalability of VxRail is very good.""VxRail has high performance and has great efficiency. There is a single place for us to manage all of our virtual machines. The ability to right-size instead of overcommit VMs is a large benefit.""The VxRail is built on two specific platforms that have been in the industry for the last 15 to 20 years: the 1-U socket and the 2-U socket platforms from Dell. They're in their sixteenth generation of those platforms, I believe, so they're very stable.""The stability of VxRail is good, we have not had any issues.""The ease of deployment and management of the solution are the most valuable aspects of the product.""The major advantage is the blueprint. You do not need to separately manage the sand or network part because it all gets virtualized."

More VxRail Pros →

Cons
"The platform needs to improve user management and the web console.""Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface.""I'd prefer it if a remote console was provided.""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.""A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is.""I had issues locating the documentation that applied to my version of StarWind vSAN.""This is a great product.""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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"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.""There may be issues around scaling.""They can bring more awareness about this product. In this part of the world or this region, people normally don't know about SimpliVity and its capabilities. The company we have it sold to hasn't been able to fully utilize all the features or understand the features. So, product awareness should be improved.""Its deployment should be easier.""The fact that it is tied to a certain hardware platform would probably be the bigger negative versus just being able to buy something off the shelf.""I have a free project with SimpliVity deployment in the next three months. What can be improved is that in one or two of these projects, I need a cloud backup for the infrastructure and data. As for the infrastructure of the product as it relates to customer size, it is not very good at this moment in Peru. I need a solution for the cloud. In Peru, it's a three or four solution provider for cloud services.""I'm not a technical guy, and I am pretty much okay with the way it is, but it would help if it was closest to Nutanix in Gartner's Magic Quadrants. Nutanix very often beats us. Nutanix provides Acropolis for free. It probably would be great if we have a virtualization layer. It is something that might be lacking in our solution. We depend on VMware, and it is very expensive. It is lacking the software that allows us to install it with HPE and not depend on a third party.""Once you select the size of SimpliVity, it could be risky for you to downsize it because you may need maybe to reimplement some things."

More HPE SimpliVity Cons →

"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""We'd like to see more automation capabilities in the future.""In the next release, I would like to see our graphical user interface allow us to manage VxRail clusters and everything on a single pane of glass where I can monitor and shut down the server, similar to a VxRail manager.""If VxRail could also offer file services in addition to virtualization, that would be nice because sometimes people want to complement their environment with file services, and you don't have that in VxRail.""The cost is quite high. It's a very expensive solution to run.""The full solution is not completely included as a bundle, such as we see with SimpliVity.""When it comes to maintenance, it takes 16 hours to upgrade a 12 node VxRail plus. This could be improved in the system.""Lacks integration of licenses so that it's an expensive solution."

More VxRail Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
  • "This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
  • "StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."
  • "The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."
  • "This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
  • "We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."
  • "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 →

  • "The licensing cost could be lower."
  • "Licensing costs are on a monthly basis. There are additional costs."
  • "It's a costly solution and is more expensive than VxRail."
  • "Customers always complain that SimpliVity is a little bit higher in price point as compared to other solutions available in the market."
  • "The solution is priced high. However, there are plenty of features as part of the package that other solutions do not have."
  • "There is not a license required for the solution."
  • "The price of the solution is reasonable. We have purchased a five-year license with all the support and upgrades."
  • "If we compare the price of HPE SimpliVity with other vendors that are selling the hyper-converged infrastructure, all of them are not cheap and are priced similarly. However, the price we pay and what we receive makes it a good price."
  • More HPE SimpliVity Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The solution is priced well for businesses."
  • "The licensing aspect is the most painful for some of our customers. Customers go for a VMware license that's standard and then they find they have to go with the enterprise solution and adjust the license. If you have a limited budget, that's difficult."
  • "There is a license required for this solution."
  • "The solution is very expensive."
  • "I do not believe that the price should be lower, as I feel it to be reasonable."
  • "The price is rather on the high side."
  • "We made a one-time purchase of the solution and the price is expensive."
  • "VxRail is quite expensive and could be cheaper. I would say that the main difference between VxRail and the competition is cost. There may be some differences in features, but I would say that it's mainly the costs."
  • More VxRail Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers.
    Top Answer:The StarWind Management Console is available only for Microsoft Windows/Windows Server, and should also be available for… more »
    Top Answer:HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We… more »
    Top Answer:I like SimpliVity because it can be adapted for small clients or the biggest ones. It's flexible.
    Top Answer:SimpliVity's price is excellent. You can get a good discount on the price, which is important for a small client… 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
    SimpliVity, HPE HCI
    VCE VxRail
    Learn More
    Overview

    For SMB, ROBO, Cloud and Hosting providers, who look to cut down virtualization expenses, our solution is StarWind VSAN. It is software that eliminates any need in physical shared storage by basically “mirroring” internal hard disks and flash between hypervisor servers. There is less hardware to buy in general, consequently less money is spent on purchase and maintenance. The existing hardware is used with maximum efficiency, so there is no money wasted at all.

    StarWind Virtual SAN targets those who already have servers, or are bound to a particular vendor list to buy from. In case there is a new virtualization infrastructure to be built from scratch, StarWind offers a much better way – StarWind HyperConverged Appliance. It is a turnkey solution complete with hardware and software, powered by StarWind Virtual SAN. Those who need to build and maintain virtualization infrastructure at little to no expense, may be interested in StarWind Virtual SAN Free.

    HPE SimpliVity is an HCI software solution that provides powerful data protection, reducing data loss along with lowering the risk of ransomware attacks on your enterprise.

    HPE SimpliVity Features

    HPE SimpliVity has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Flexible, compact architecture
    • Centralized management
    • AI-driven intelligence
    • Built-in data protection and disaster recovery
    • VM-centric management and mobility
    • Simple to deploy, manage, and scale

    HPE SimpliVity Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing HPE SimpliVity. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Efficient: HPE SimpliVity helps reduce the number of devices in your data center while also decreasing the total cost of ownership.
    • Cloud benefits with enterprise capabilities: When your enterprise deploys HPE SimpliVity, you gain the agility, elasticity, and affordability offered by cloud computing.
    • Affordable and flexible: The solution provides IT teams with the performance, reliability, and resiliency of on-premises infrastructure. HPE SimpliVity allows them to start virtualizing their enterprise while also keeping sensitive data safe.
    • Reduced risk of data loss: Because HPE SimpliVity is a powerful solution with built-in resiliency, backup, and disaster recovery, it is able to provide advanced data protection that reduces your organization’s risk of data loss and also lowers the risk of ransomware attacks.
    • Speed: HPE SimpliVity gives you the ability to deploy blocks and manage VM environments quickly and easily by using the VMware interface. In addition, the solution allows you to quickly view all data centers and remote offices within a single interface.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by HPE SimpliVity users.

    Jeff S., Information Technology Manager at Troyer Foods, Inc. says the solution has “Phenomenal deduplication and compression, good support, and works on its own. SimpliVity is integrated with the hypervisor, and you have a single pane of glass. It is really hands-off. Once you set your backup schedules, you're done.

    A Senior Datacenter Consultant at a computer software company mentions, “The most valuable feature is the ease of use and the storage virtualization layer, together with the built-in backups. That's what makes SimpliVity really useful, and how you can replicate data between different sites without paying an extra license for that feature. All the features are built into the product.”

    PeerSpot user Doug C., IT Engineer at a government, comments, “Backups and restores occur very quickly. All SimpliVity management is done through vCenter, providing a single-pane of glass for all management and configuration functions. The advanced deduplication and compression greatly reduce the storage requirements, reducing the amount of expensive flash storage required.The 10G interfaces between the SimpliVity nodes greatly speeds up VM migrations between nodes. SimpliVity enables "stretched-cluster" operation with mirrored storage between the nodes, enabling automated failover. If a node or site goes down for any reason, the VMs on that node are automatically restarted on the other node.”

    German I., Solutions Architect Data Center Servers and Storage at Tecnologia informatica, explains, “The integration possibilities regarding the administration console are one of the best configurations and one of the best features that differentiates this product from others in the market. Also, you can add extra coverage protection that includes everything inside of the hard drives — similar products don't do this. You can use it directly from the hypervisor, which is great.”

    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.” 

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    Try it today

    Learn more about HPE SimpliVity
    Learn more about VxRail
    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
    World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Construction Company9%
    Educational Organization9%
    Computer Software Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Retailer7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Government9%
    Educational Organization8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Insurance Company8%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Government10%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise15%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise57%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise40%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise50%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    HPE SimpliVity vs. VxRail
    March 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about HPE SimpliVity vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
    690,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HPE SimpliVity is ranked 6th in HCI with 44 reviews while VxRail is ranked 3rd in HCI with 53 reviews. HPE SimpliVity is rated 8.4, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of HPE SimpliVity writes "Phenomenal deduplication and compression, good support, and works on its own". 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 SimpliVity is most compared with VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and HPE Hyper Converged, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. See our HPE SimpliVity vs. VxRail report.

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    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.