We performed a comparison between Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable feature is the fact that the nodes are Active/Active, and allow us to do upgrades on any node without any downtime."
"In addition to the main functions of the software, I want to note the excellent work of technical support."
"For those basic uses, it's simple to set up and manage, and it seems to do a fine job."
"This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime."
"The ability to keep data accessible even in the event of hardware failures is highly valued, as it ensures business continuity."
"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."
"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
"The fact that we can expand our storage and add on to our compute nodes easily and how amazing the StarWind technical support team is really adding value to our purchase."
"We find the setup quite straightforward and very easy."
"The VX machines are scalable."
"Installation is straightforward because it's a vSAN. It only took one or two days."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series' deployment is easy. We are a tier-one platinum partner who is into multiple implementations."
"The initial setup is straightforward once you know what you're doing."
"What makes it valuable is the high-availability. In the education field, when you've got students in classrooms, any loss of service disrupts the lessons to a point that the whole lesson is affected. For part of the business which isn't business-critical, to have a little bit of a hiccup wouldn't be such a big thing, but here, it's the high availability of service that is important."
"However, StarWind HCA won us over in two areas: price and support. We were actually able to install an all-flash StarWind HCA for less than other vendors' spinning rust solutions! We were able to roll five years of warranty and support into the purchase price and still save thousands of dollars upfront."
"The easy way everything can be configured and ready to run in less than a day is great."
"We have the ProActive Premium Support and it has reduced our monitoring efforts. It has been very useful. They have been able to detect things such as when there's an issue with the cluster or they're getting some kind of weird reading that I have no idea about. They're really quick to let me know about it and even set up a schedule to address it. I've been very happy with their level of support on that."
"We have found the live migration to be the most valuable feature. It allows us to seamlessly maintain our servers, as well as have peace of mind if something goes wrong."
"The setup was easy to deploy, and management is simplified compared with traditional SAN solutions."
"Their support team is extremely helpful, and they are pretty friendly and knowledgeable."
"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."
"Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items."
"The documentation could be clearer in terms of explaining the installation."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"I would like to see different levels of support offered."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"I would like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure."
"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."
"With the VX machines, the clients often confuse the hardware itself with the services and resources. VMs are configured according to resources - memory, hard disk capacity, and network. These resources, including memory and processor, are actually shared on the VX Series. So, if the server's processor is underpowered or unreliable for the VMs, many of the VMs will encounter issues. Ideally, the physical server configuration should align more closely with the needs of the virtual servers."
"The user management could be a bit better. It's something they could improve upon in future releases."
"Support could be better."
"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series needs to improve its stability. Its resolution should be faster."
"We'd like an easier setup for Windows updates on the Hyper-V servers so you don't have to use a script to ensure auto-updating is done."
"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."
"We haven't had to use the ProActive Premium Support feature much yet. But they contacted me one time because there was a glitch on one server, a networking issue... I have not seen the problem since."
"The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss."
"The management console could use a facelift."
"I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers."
"What would have to be done urgently is the adaptation of the hardware to the configuration."
"A possible thing is perhaps a customer portal to schedule a time with support online via a calendar."
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Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is ranked 16th in HCI with 4 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is rated 8.6, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series writes "simplifies management for clients familiar with VMware, and offers a user-friendly management and configuration experience". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is most compared with VxRail, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, HPE Alletra dHCI and HPE Hyper Converged, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
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