We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware and others in HCI."StarWind Virtual SAN is a very easy-to-use solution that can be quickly and easily deployed and configured without intimate and specific knowledge in the virtualization sphere."
"When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."
"I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have."
"It has reduced our overall maintenance and overhead by having to only maintain physical boxes for one cluster instead of having to manage physical boxes for two clusters."
"Updates to server hardware are now painless and done during working hours with zero stress. We had a RAID failure a few months back, and nobody in the building even noticed and there was no after hours time used for repair."
"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."
"This solution made it possible to deploy a new infrastructure in the shortest amount of time, at a low cost without purchasing expensive hardware storage, and use unused servers."
"StarWind Virtual SAN can improve an organization's storage infrastructure by providing high availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, performance, and ease of use."
"The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained."
"The solution is very scalable."
"It is scalable, and NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) makes its deployment easier."
"The most valuables features of it are the deduplication and the compaction because the ratios are much better than what we normally get on our FAS storage."
"The most valuable feature, currently, is the density of the system as hardware. I'm able to leverage the density of the product and remove bigger hardware which requires more space, cooling, and power costs, obviously. There are cost savings, obviously."
"The most valuable feature is the software design storage that really provided a faster, agile, easier to scale up and out storage path."
"The solution integrates well with all the other applications that we use on our environment."
"It has automated a lot of workloads. It has automated us from ticketing a large number to a very small number."
"It's completely hyper-converged, so it's very convenient."
"The newer versions of this solution are much more stable and easier to manage."
"vSAN is easy for deploying and maintenance, so some customers can do service themselves."
"It has a single pane of glass for management and operational control, which is the most valuable feature. The integrated storage is also valuable."
"Easy-to-use, and easy-to-scale product."
"It is very well known in the industry, and there are a lot of technical resources around it. This is a big thing for me because, at the end of the day, when you implement it, you need to support it."
"It is easier to deploy than the traditional SAN."
"The scalability is very good and the solution is stable and reliable."
"The interface of the management console of the StarWind Virtual SAN is complex, and it's difficult for the novice user to interact with the management having less knowledge or training in the product."
"It would be helpful if StarWind provided more precise and detailed documentation explaining how to configure the solution in various scenarios, including the advantages and disadvantages of each."
"They require more media visibility."
"The most disappointing side of the application is the free edition. There used to be GUI attached. That has recently changed to only CLI management of the application."
"The cluster configuration is time-consuming and tedious."
"It is not very clear within the StarWind Management Console or the StarWind support documentation how to perform maintenance on a single node in a two-node HA cluster."
"While StarWind.com excels in numerous areas, there are a couple of notable functionalities that it currently lacks. One of these is duplication, which could be an invaluable feature for data redundancy and backup purposes. The ability to duplicate data across different storage locations can be crucial for safeguarding against data loss, and its absence is a minor limitation in an otherwise stellar offering."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
"The fact that it doesn't have all the data points we need and all the historical data that I would like. I find that a lot of the performance analysis is done through support, where they have something that we don't have. It would be nice just to have all that on-prem."
"To improve the product, they should make it more flexible."
"Its stability is very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crash."
"I'm not a fan of how they don't log you out properly from some of their web tools for management."
"The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."
"In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."
"My biggest pain point is the installation part. I would like to see the appliance itself remove the entire switch that goes behind it and figure out how to do all the cluster interconnects within the box itself."
"I would like to see the implementation process improved."
"I would like for the next release to be a bit cheaper."
"One area that could be improved is the management feature."
"The product's complex setup phase is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"They should make the software updates easier. We should be able to upgrade it more easily."
"I would have liked it to have been more scalable. It's scalable but not as much as, for example, the ScaleIO systems were or the Kaminario"
"I would like to be able to limit IOPS."
"The UI could certainly be better. The inside into what's actually going on with vSAN would be nice to know."
"There is a room for improvement on the latest version of compatibility with the VMware product, especially for vSAN and with other vendors on their motherboards and driver configurations."
Earn 20 points
NetApp HCI [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in HCI with 32 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 3rd in HCI with 226 reviews. NetApp HCI [EOL] is rated 8.0, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of NetApp HCI [EOL] writes "Ease of provisioning has allowed us to implement large installations in a very short time frame". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". NetApp HCI [EOL] is most compared with , whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Pure Storage FlashArray.
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.
