Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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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 VX Series

Ranking in HCI

20th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind Virtual SAN

Ranking in HCI

4th

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

192

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is 1.4%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.0%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Genesis Dapoza

Email Administrator at Technopaq, Inc.

simplifies management for clients familiar with VMware, and offers a user-friendly management and configuration experience

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 drawback is that the hardware resources (CPU, memory, storage) are shared among all the VMs running on the VX Series. If the server's processor is underpowered for the VMs, many of the VMs might have performance issues. An improvement could be to have more granular control over resource allocation to VMs.

Read full review

WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

Seamless integrations, high availability, and offers a free version

Although I am generally satisfied with VSAN and its performance, there are some areas that could be improved to enhance its effectiveness even further. One area that could benefit from improvement is scalability. While the tool works well in its current configuration, allowing for greater ease and flexibility in adding new nodes to the cluster without complications would be very beneficial, especially in growing environments. Additionally, I would like to see additional features in the next version, such as better support for automated resource management. This could include proactive suggestions for optimizing storage and memory usage, as well as preventive alerts about the health status of the servers. A more intuitive interface or an improved dashboard for monitoring the cluster would also be helpful, as it would facilitate performance tracking and help identify potential issues before they affect services.

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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

"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series' deployment is easy. We are a tier-one platinum partner who is into multiple implementations."

"We find the setup quite straightforward and very easy."

"The clients like the solution’s simplicity."

"The VX machines are scalable."

"Installation is straightforward because it's a vSAN. It only took one or two days."

"The ROI is great on this product."

"Quick setup, great support, stability is great"

"StarWind has provided us with a top-notch, well-supported, robust vSAN offering when other vendors have moved to hyper-converged solutions that are outside of our average clients' reach from a financial and resource perspective."

"Immediately we noticed huge performance gains, even on older hardware and once we implemented a 10GB link between both servers, the sync was near-instant after the initial sync was complete."

"It has allowed us to save a lot of time and money by letting us create a vSAN within a Windows VM on the environment it controls."

"The performance of the solution is accurate and concise."

"The license price is one of the cheapest in the market."

"I like StarWind's high availability. The failover is almost immediate, so the end users have no idea the guest VM moved at all. We can failover all guest VMs onto a single hypervisor, place it into maintenance mode, install updates, and reboot a hypervisor all during the daytime and remotely, with confidence the process will be successful."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"Support could be better."

"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series needs to improve its stability. Its resolution should be faster."

"The user management could be a bit better. It's something they could improve upon in future releases."

"The product must provide AI features."

"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."

"It should reclaim white spaces after big files are deleted."

"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."

"I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things."

"It could have a dashboard so that you can check all servers' SAN health and performance."

"I wish they would improve the documentation for the beginner level as it's not very clear on the web page."

"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."

"Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline."

"I would like to see some additional, and possibly clearer, implementation videos with some slower and possibly more detailed descriptions of what the various steps of implementation are for someone who is unfamiliar with high availability and failover clustering in Windows."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is room for improvement in the licensing structure, maybe. Regarding sizing the resources, sometimes it's difficult to calculate/compute them based on the client's requirements."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"The tool is expensive."

"You need to pay a license for additional features. If we need to monitor hardware for the automatic alert notification, we need to pay them."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."

"The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."

"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."

"We are happy with the price."

"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."

"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."

"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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 VX Series?

The VX machines are scalable.

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

The licensing model is moderately complex. The tool is expensive. It is VMware’s fault, though.

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series?

The product must provide AI features. It depends on VMware since the core is software. The solution must provide a more detailed plan to enable simplicity of use.

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?

It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

I can't give a sincere opinion on the installation and licensing costs because, as I have mentioned repeatedly, I am currently using the free version. However, I can say that I have submitted a req...

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

More comprehensive reporting and educational resources for error resolution would enhance the user experience. There have been cases where not understanding exactly what's failing on the Virtual SA...

VxRail vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Comparisons

Compared 28% of the time

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 22% of the time

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 17% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 25% of the time

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Compared 17% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 10% of the time

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Product Reports

HCI

Download Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series product report

StarWind Virtual SAN

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

Lenovo VX Series, ThinkAgile VX Series

StarWind SAN & NAS

Overview

Differentiating yourself from the competition is vital in today’s fast-moving business environment. To support your business, IT systems must be simple, agile, and cost-effective so you can meet your customers’ requirements to be ever online. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series enables you to meet these requirements by focusing on the business outcome you require, rather than on building your infrastructure.

ThinkAgile VX Series, powered by VMware vSAN, is available in several models. Each is preconfigured, pretested, and optimized to provide the simplest way to bring a new VMware hyperconverged environment online. If you have an existing VMware environment, the VX Series can integrate into it easily.

Designed for any size business from SMBs through large enterprises, VX Series can be used as infrastructure for remote office/branch office (ROBO) and retail stores as well as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and enterprise applications.

Lenovo

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.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. StarWind Virtual SAN