IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Accelerate and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind, Nutanix, Red Hat and others in Software Defined Storage (SDS).
To learn more, read our detailed Software Defined Storage (SDS) Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 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
"The most valuable feature is the robustness, which is typical of IBM because their software generally just works.""The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very user-friendly."

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"Overall, the solution has improved our system's performance. I was concerned about the physical-to-virtual conversion of our database server. It's actually much faster now, as a virtualized host on this Hyper-V cluster.""The pricing and discounts given by Starwind on the hardware were unmatched.""The added speed of using standard HDD and SSD meant we could increase what services are stored on the servers without having to have additional servers.""The most valuable features of the solution are the redundancy and its cost. I used to have a SAN, a Dell EMC EqualLogic. Unfortunately, it was they call an "inverted pyramid of doom." It was two or three hosts, two switches, and one storage array at the very bottom. But the SAN, the storage array at the very bottom, is a single point of failure...""Being able to log on to the GUI to see specific data and usage statistics, executing clones, starting and stopping VMs, etc., is great.""Product functionality and performance are wonderful.""We no longer need multiple staff members performing small, mundane tasks.""The presence of built-in storage saved the company from having to purchase a separate storage array and related network equipment."

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Cons
"The reporting mechanisms need improvement.""he interface is not user-friendly so the ease of use could be improved."

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"We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed.""Possible new features could be CSV-level snapshot capability, Veeam integration, and maybe a more straightforward setup. Granted, you don't have to worry about setups with the HCA, but if you want to implement StarWind vSAN in a lab to test it is a tedious setup process.""The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss.""The truth is that the operation and support offered is good, but we consider that the product's usability could improve, as well as the data resynchronization time after an unexpected closure.""Although the setup documentation was very complete and succinct, I found StarWind documentation to be a bit sparse.""The response time is usually several hours after the issue occurred.""The only real flaw that I have seen so far is this hard drive that was accidentally ejected because when it was received and added back into the RAID. There was an error there. It was not added back into the RAID correctly, so I have an outstanding hard disk. Apparently, a guy just knocked it with his hand as he was in my office, so it was just a small eject. He said that he didn't crash into anything. That is the only thing that has reared its head.""The only thing I have run into is that I did want to add more hard drives into the host, so that we could look at doing a RAID 10, and the hard drive prices were pretty expensive... that's pretty nit-picky and I don't think it has anything to do with StarWind itself. I think it's more on whomever they work with for their hardware."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "For a database, on a yearly basis, we pay approximately $3,500 for licensing fees. The solution is sold as a subscription on a yearly basis so there are no other ancillary costs."
  • "If you are cost-sensitive then this solution is not for you."
  • More IBM Spectrum Accelerate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."
  • "Its cost was reasonable."
  • "This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
  • "When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
  • "The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
  • "I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."
  • "The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
  • "We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
  • More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
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    Top Answer:StarWind's proactive support is my favorite feature.
    Top Answer:Keep in mind that StarWind VMs for the vSAN will take up 24GB of memory per host. If you do decide to go with StarWind, adjust your hardware configuration appropriately if you need those memory… more »
    Top Answer:I honestly don't have anything to complain about. Nothing is perfect, though, over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me… more »
    Ranking
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    8.0
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    Also Known As
    IBM XIV
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    IBM
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    Overview

    IBM Spectrum Accelerate is a software-defined block storage solution designed for rapid deployment across heterogeneous infrastructure for hybrid cloud and delivering consistent service levels to a dynamic workload mix. It is based on proven grid-architecture, enterprise-scale IBM XIV technology. IBM Spectrum Accelerate can be deployed, including as hyper-converged infrastructure, on any x86 server, on pre-installed third-party appliances or on public cloud infrastructure, and is available as a service on IBM Cloud infrastructure.

    For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA. 

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    Sample Customers
    Silverpop
    Sears Home and Franchise Business
    Top Industries
    No Data Available
    REVIEWERS
    Construction Company12%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Transportation Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    No Data Available
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise47%
    Buyer's Guide
    Software Defined Storage (SDS)
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind, Nutanix, Red Hat and others in Software Defined Storage (SDS). Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    IBM Spectrum Accelerate is ranked 18th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews. IBM Spectrum Accelerate is rated 8.0, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Accelerate writes "A robust solution with good performance and support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". IBM Spectrum Accelerate is most compared with IBM Spectrum Scale, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex, VMware vSAN, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN.

    See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors, best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors, and best Cloud Software Defined Storage vendors.

    We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) 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.