Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Lenovo and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Lenovo is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.0, while StarWind is ranked #14 with an average rating of 10.0. Lenovo holds a 0.9% mindshare in HCI, compared to StarWind’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Lenovo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series

Read 3 Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series reviews

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100% willing to recommend

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Read 66 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reviews

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313 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series

StarWind HyperConverged App...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure market. Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series seems to have the upper hand with advanced features and performance capabilities, making it worth the investment despite higher costs.

Features: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers efficient storage optimization, simplified management, and robust disaster recovery solutions. Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series provides superior scalability, integrated automation, and extensive workload support. Its flexibility and integration capabilities offer a distinct advantage in feature offerings.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is noted for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series presents a comprehensive deployment model with extensive documentation and knowledgeable support teams. StarWind emphasizes simplicity and quick setup, while Lenovo provides a structured and guided deployment for larger installations.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is recognized for competitive pricing and quick ROI, attracting budget-conscious organizations. Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, although more expensive initially, offers long-term value with reduced operational costs and enhanced productivity, beneficial for those seeking in-depth performance returns.

To learn more, read our detailed Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

June 2025

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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

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series

Ranking in HCI

18th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Ranking in HCI

14th

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Adeel Hashmi

IT Technical Advisor at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees

With an easy deployment phase, the tool offers good scalability and stability

Suppose you don't compare Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series with the newest features available in the other variants of the product, then everything is pretty standard, so I cannot pinpoint any areas of issue in particular. With Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, the firmware from VMware or Nutanix takes time to be made available compared to other products that we use in our company's IT environment. If you want to go to a certain version of VMware and check what Nutanix offers, you see that both the offerings don't go hand in hand, and you have to wait for a quarter or two quarters until you see the same versions of both being made available for the other products, like Dell or HPE. There is a delay in the availability of similar versions of firmware from both the products, which are VMware and Nutanix for Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, due to the delayed releases from both products, maybe by a quarter or so. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in a solution. In future releases of the product, I may want some improvements to be made in the products from Nutanix and VMware.

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Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

Proactive support with improved speed and resilience

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

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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 features of the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series are the ease of use and simple configuration."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the product's deployment phase is pretty easy."

"The initial setup is simple. We were able to deliver the hyper-convergence solution in a very good time."

"Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."

"The hardware footprint is great. We've got two 2U servers which replaced four 2U servers. Granted, they were about three years old at that point, but we actually increased our processing capacity by about 50 percent while keeping our storage capacity about the same. We've actually been able to downgrade to a half rack from a full rack because we've gotten rid of some of our network equipment and some of our additional storage arrays."

"The initial setup is straightforward once you know what you're doing."

"Repair efforts have been reduced to nearly nothing."

"UI Options are simple and easy to find."

"The StarWind array has greatly improved our workflow internally as it is quite easy to use and provides robust features that allow us to provide anything our clients need quickly and efficiently."

"The product runs wonderfully and has already gone through several failure tests."

"StarWind is very resilient and built off of quality vendor hardware."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series could improve by having better integration with the solutions from VMware and vCenter"

"Here in Nigeria, the only challenge that we have, which I think is also experienced globally is the delay in bringing in the spare parts. This is a challenge facing our country, such as the Forex market. However, this is beyond the control of Lenovo themselves."

"There is a delay in the availability of similar versions of firmware from both the products, which are VMware and Nutanix for Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, due to the delayed releases from both products, maybe by a quarter or so."

"I think that the pre-installation questionnaire was a little confusing and ambiguous."

"I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers."

"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."

"It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well."

"That situation, where Dell EMC servers were going down, has been my only real difficulty... it ended up being something that the wider audience of Dell EMC was actually aware of as an issue. Neither the StarWind technicians nor the Dell EMC technicians were able to actually identify that problem sooner than a week or so... The communication between Dell EMC support and StarWind support, in that particular scenario, left something to be desired, for me. I did express those concerns to StarWind and they were very responsive to that."

"An emphasis on security can be improved."

"One area for improvement of the solution is that I had to get Windows, which I really didn't want because of the extra maintenance or overhead, as well as viruses, etc. It's going to take time for them to get their Linux to that point. They already have Linux but it's not as mature and they don't really support it on HCAs. They have it for individuals who want to use it on their servers, but not on HCAs."

"Not much can be improved, to be honest."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, it is a pretty good product. The product's price was one of the main criteria that made my company choose it over the other products in the market."

"When comparing this solution to other OEM solutions it is relatively inexpensive."

"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."

"Its cost was reasonable."

"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."

"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."

"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."

"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."

"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."

"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series?

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the product's deployment phase is pretty easy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series?

Price-wise, it is a pretty good product. The product's price was one of the main criteria that made my company choose it over the other products in the market.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series?

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 38% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node vs Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series

Compared 12% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series

Compared 10% of the time

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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 28% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 14% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HCI

May 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

May 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Also Known As

Lenovo HX Series, ThinkAgile HX Series

No data available

Overview

Designed for easy deployment and manageability in scale-out clusters, the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series combines Nutanix software with Lenovo’s highly reliable and scalable servers. These appliances ship fully integrated, tested, and configured so that you can dramatically accelerate your time to value and reduce your infrastructure maintenance.

Lenovo

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.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

June 2025

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