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: September 2023).
745,775 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: Which solution do you prefer: VxRail or HPE SimpliVity?
Answer: SimpliVity is the most complete HCI solution for the datacenter and is technologically superior, but if in your case you only need to partially implement HCI and want to connect third-party products for backup or SAN, then VxRail would be the choice.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"StarWind is very easy to use, even if you have had no experience using a SAN before.""We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment.""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.""You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage.""The failover protection and the ability to expand storage and nodes with no downtime are by far the best physical features we have benefited from.""It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly.""The customer support provided by StarWind is excellent.""The product gave us a cost-effective way to deploy a highly available server environment."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"It's a very nice solution. It's a complete solution that we are looking for because we don't have personnel with expertise.""It's much more simple than Nutanix and other hyper-converged solutions, at least from our point of view.""Best for companies just starting out.""It is a stable solution.""There is no single feature that's the most valuable. All of SimpliVity's components work together to make daily operations easier for our customers.""Its simplicity is most valuable. The management is easy, and you don't have to have a lot of knowledge about storage, network, etc. It is simple to manage and simple to implement, and that's its key feature.""The solution has integrated backup features that are useful.""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."

More HPE SimpliVity Pros →

"Enterprise is a complete solution that includes performance, backups and disaster recovery.""VxRail is a simple, efficient solution. It's easy to upgrade and scale the solution. If we increase our user base, we can easily scale it out. We have several thousand using it now.""The implementation was quick, we used a checklist and it took approximately one hour.""What I like the most in terms of features is the fact that the VxRail update can be done in one week. It takes much less time to do a whole server upgrade and an infrastructure update as well.""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.""For me, VxRail's most valuable feature is its life-cycle management.""You don't need to think about compatibility of components.""We like the design and that it meets data storage needs."

More VxRail Pros →

Cons
"When you will cease your contract with StarWind (for support) your product won't be updated and that is a big selling point, especially for us, as we have loads of products from StarWind.""StarWind Virtual SAN could benefit from better integration with other tools and technologies, such as backup and disaster recovery solutions.""Though I have learned some of the nuances with the upgrading of firmware/windows/etc., it would be nice to have a more efficient method of doing so.""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.""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.""StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used.""We don't really have any issues with this product."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"The solution could have an optimization site.""There are some small changes that can be made to the interface to improve it but it typically works well.""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.""The product should be competitive with other brands.""Product doesn't scale.""We had minor problems with the initial setup but it was with our internal infrastructure.""There is room for improvement in the operations area because the support for that server space is minimal.""There is a file size limitation when you want to do an individual file restore, but they might have resolved this in newer versions. As I'm taking backups at the VM server level, I can restore a file from any one of those without standing up the VM, and I can restore it to any mounted VM that I want. The problem is that there is a file size limitation. It becomes problematic when I'm trying to restore. When I want to restore a backup of a SQL database, my backups are considerably larger than 10 gigs. So, the only way to restore that backup file is to mount the entire VM somewhere and then copy it, which doesn't take long at all."

More HPE SimpliVity Cons →

"I would like to see Dell take a crack at simplifying the process of moving from a node to a cluster and assembling everything into the appliance. It would be great if Dell could provide a pathway where a customer could actually install it without the certifications. Of course, I can't say how you would dumb down something so complex.""It could be improved by having more information on the integration portion of ACI.""The fact that is based on vSAN is the main issue of this solution.""They need to keep upgrading the environment and improving automation so that the solution keeps getting better and better.""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.""They're getting better with their one-click upgrade. The success factor is now between 85% to 87% with the latest release. They should just continuously improve on that one-click factor and make it more seamless.""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.""We have some issues, but they are possibly out-of-the-box issues. There was a host that was dead on arrival, and there were some file issues on other hosts. We're currently working actively with Dell to resolve all these issues. Once they are resolved, the product should be stable."

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 →

  • "The solution is expensive; not every budget can fit in there."
  • "Cost of this product is high."
  • "Scaling isn't cheap"
  • "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."
  • "There are additional costs for storage."
  • "The pricing of HPE SimpliVity is comparable with other solutions so the price is good."
  • "There is a one-time purchase needed for the license for HPE SimpliVity. The solution is expensive, but it is worth the money."
  • "One big advantage with SimpliVity is that you don't need the higher license cost or VMware to put together a simple SimpliVity solution."
  • More HPE SimpliVity Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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."
  • "It is reasonable. Compared to the legacy hardware that we had so far, we are not paying way more, but we have very good performance. Its price is good."
  • More VxRail Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Answers from the Community
    Antonio Sousa
    Faisal-Zia - PeerSpot reviewerFaisal-Zia
    Real User

    Hi,  Refer to your questions if you are a COO of a small company then both solutions would be costly as a minimum of 3 nodes solution is required. Both are good at their places.  Let's say, VxRail is deeply engineered with VMware and they have strong integration and performance testing results. in terms of expansion, federation, compression/deduplication, etc., is much more improved. Whereas HPE SimpliVity used its own storage virtualization software and backup software. Whereas in VxRail you can also use any backup software. Apart from the discussion, my suggestion would be to go with simple X86 Servers(any OEM) with Sangfor( they have built-in administrative software (i.e. VCenter), built-in backup (no need to buy any other software), multi-hypervisor support, cost-effective even if you plan to provide SaaS service you can easily do it from your company immediately. They also provide vNGFW, vADC, vIAM, etc. It is an end-to-end HCI Solution with Security support included. Prices are very reasonable(I don't know your region). Thanks 

    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:HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing is competitive. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, where one is a reasonable price, and ten is the… 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
    SimpliVity, HPE HCI
    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 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 Company10%
    Construction Company9%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Retailer7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization48%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Government5%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    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 Business34%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise40%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise57%
    Large Enterprise28%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    HPE SimpliVity vs. VxRail
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about HPE SimpliVity vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    745,775 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HPE SimpliVity is ranked 5th in HCI with 26 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 37 reviews. HPE SimpliVity is rated 8.4, while VxRail is rated 8.4. 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 and Dell PowerFlex, 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.

    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.