Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure and StarWind Virtual Tape Library 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.
765,234 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
"Training is also easy as it is just one system to learn.""It has allowed me to effectively and confidently manage the maintenance of hosts where I can power off a host and have its VMs migrate to another one.""It provides shared storage to multiple hypervisor hosts. Times had changed, however. StarWind Virtual SAN is the “software replaces hardware” for SAN. We have access control and CCTV systems up and running using Microsoft clustering and shared storage""It has improved our organization in terms of its uptime as our main cluster has never been offline due to a SAN failure.""It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable.""StarWind Virtual SAN is a highly flexible solution, as it can be deployed on physical servers or on top of virtual machines running on hypervisors such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V.""Being hardware agnostic is a must and definitely scored points for us.""The fact that the solution is vendor-agnostic allows it to be used with any virtualization vendor while remaining a powerful abstraction over storage."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"The interface is very user-friendly.""Sangfor HCI has a really good GUI. It allows us to monitor the temperature of the server and many other things.""I would rate the user-friendliness an eight out of ten.""The product provides a single management console for managing everything.""The most valuable feature is the three nodes and the free hypervisor.""Sangfor has many solutions, and you can easily manage their machine servers with just one management. They're always striving for greatness, and they continuously update their products. For example, they have now built endpoint security within the firewall. They are continuously improving not only the security but also all other products.""It was not expensive at all.""Sangfor is user-friendly and simple to upgrade."

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"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud.""The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud.""It is a stable solution.""I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further.""The solution made our backups way more reliable."

More StarWind Virtual Tape Library Pros →

Cons
"I'd love to see native export of metrics (via Prometheus or something of that nature) to allow us to get more metrics available on our existing dashboard software.""We would like to see the documentation more fully developed.""Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet.""StarWind offers the Enterprise-level high availability (HA), deployed and easily configured .maintain and update and with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings a the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost effective point" Having used Starwind Virtual SAN for many years both for clients and for internal systems it has always done exactly what it set out to do, provide a cost effect way to run a HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor, but it is most effective with Hyper-V, simple, easy to use, -.software monitoring should be web based to be reachable from any workstation in VLAN.""The initial setup got a little confusing at a few points with differences between the VMware version in documentation vs the latest, etc.""I think the setup could be streamlined a bit.""The system failovers properly on its own without too much worry.""I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"The initialization is not fully automated and has room for improvement.""Sangfor HCI has room for improvement in terms of integration. So, the integration with Sangfor HCI is not as extensive as in Nutanix.""The documentation and support from the community are not as good or as mature as VMware or Hyper-V.""Sangfor HCI could be improved with certification and the right ecosystem for ISVs like Oracle and SAP.""It can have more compatibility and new features. I would also like to see better performance. Some of the other HCI solutions already provide the SSD and flash storage and much higher Intel processors. Sangfor HCI can improve on that.""My company faced some issues with the product, as our virtual machines crashed, and we had to face some security issues.""Sangfor’s hypervisor is not mature enough to handle all the flavors related to industrial needs.""There is a feature to upgrade multiple VMs simultaneously, but it crashes."

More Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Cons →

"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster.""The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified.""The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud.""The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."

More StarWind Virtual Tape Library Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
  • "We are happy with the price."
  • "The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
  • "The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
  • "When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
  • "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 pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
  • "The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of Sangfor is cheaper than other competing products."
  • "The pricing of Sangfor is very competitive."
  • "It is in the middle range as compared to other hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. There is a three-year warranty on the hardware. The license also includes other features. Sangfor has included Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and a built-in firewall with the license. Other top brands, such as VxRail and VMware, require a separate license for such features."
  • "Its price should be better, but I don't think they will change the price list. You have to pay for licenses, and you have to pay for support, so you have an annual fee. You can use the product without the fee, but it's really dumb because you need support. We are an IT company. We provide the product, and we need the support too for our customers."
  • "Sangfor needs to be more aggressive because this is a new market or territory for Sangfor. Nepal is a very price-sensitive market, so Sangfor needs to be a little more aggressive with its pricing. I would rate them 3.75 out of five in terms of the price."
  • "I would say its pricing is between cheap and reasonable and would rate it as three out of five."
  • "The solution has a good initial cost but a high renewal cost."
  • "The solution is very cheap."
  • More Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
  • "The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
  • "The solution is cost-effective."
  • "The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
  • More StarWind Virtual Tape Library Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines… more »
    Top Answer:The cost of this is less than you expect. Since they're selling a software stack, you do need to consider your own… more »
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the… more »
    Top Answer:It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten... Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a… more »
    Top Answer:Sangfor has multiple options. They have both optics and capex models. You have to buy annual support. We went for… more »
    Top Answer:Sangfor has to expand its service network to other countries. They have very good services in the Gulf but don't have… more »
    Top Answer:The solution made our backups way more reliable.
    Top Answer:The pricing is surprisingly reasonable, and that includes the help to get it set up and running. They really want you to… more »
    Top Answer:I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    Learn More
    Overview

    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.

    Sangfor HCI is an IT infrastructure platform built on converged architecture. It integrates server virtualization, distributed storage, and networking. Sangfor HCI provides a unified management platform that converges compute, storage, networking, and security on a single software stack. This approach delivers a simplified architecture, ease of use, and reliability for business-critical applications.

    Hyperconverged infrastructure is a unified system of data storage. HCI combines storage, computing, networking, and management, unlike traditional storage solutions. HCI systems enable you to build your private cloud, expand to a public cloud, or have your own true hybrid cloud. Sangfor HCI presents two product models: The Sangfor HCI server appliance is a hardware version that enables easy deployment. Sangfor HCI software is the digital version combined with a third-party server that enables flexible deployment.

    Sangfor HCI supports Windows systems on desktop and is web-based. Its range of use cases cover a wide spectrum of industries, from healthcare to manufacturing. It is applicable for mid- and large-sized businesses. The software is customizable. Users can customize the logo and contact information in the user interface.

    Benefits and Features

    • Stability: Sangfor HCI delivers high reliability and availability with 0 RPO and 99.99% availability. The infrastructure is fully redundant to ensure business continuity. This means no data is lost in the event of hardware failure.
    • Simplified infrastructure: The solution supports visual management, making it easier to use. The single platform provides a central control with access to resources.
    • High performance: One unit of HCI can support up to 100,000 IOPS. The solution supports data striping, data locality, SSD caching and AI-based DB optimization. It also supports linear expansion without bottlenecks.
    • Hyper-converged infrastructure that enables working with different scenarios. For instance, cloud transformation and data center consolidation. It is fully converged, which means it provides unified management, full resource visualization, and orchestration with SCP. The standardized HCI unit consolidates hardware appliances, a storage network, IP network, and server into a single unit.
    • Integration: Sangfor HCI offers deep integration with NFV components. Users can deploy complex SDN networks.
    • Pay-as-you-grow model: The pay-per-use model reduces operational expenses and total cost of ownership.

    Use Cases

    Sangfor HCI can be applied tin various scenarios:

    • Enterprise applications: Users can benefit from the reliability and performance of Sangfor HCI for business-critical processes. The system is optimized for enterprise applications to enhance their performance and stability.
    • Datacenter consolidation: The unified and software-defined technology simplifies the operational management and the architecture of data centers.
    • Cloud transformation: You can add a cloud management platform, transforming Sangfor HCI into a complete cloud computing solution. You can then run your cloud workloads and benefit from the automation features of Sangfor HCI.
    • Data protection and recovery: Sangfor HCI offers multiple data protection features, such as continuous data protection (CDP), which ensure the integrity of sensitive and user data. You can protect backup snapshots and take backups. It records virtual machine IO logs at frequent intervals. It offers disaster recovery capabilities that ensure business continuity.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Gabriele P., Senior Software and Systems Engineer at SAMU.IT, says "It is flexible like a hyper-convergence system. You can add nodes, and you can scale to have better performance and stability. I also like the backup feature, the recovery system, and the web interface GUI to handle everything."

    A Junior Solutions Engineer at a tech services company adds that "Sangfor has many solutions, and you can easily manage their machine servers with just one management. They're always striving for greatness, and they continuously update their products. For example, they have now built endpoint security within the firewall. They are continuously improving not only the security but also all other products."




    For SMB and Enterprises, who either look to get rid of backup tapes completely, or are willing to accelerate backup process and add an extra level of protection, our solution is StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL). It is an appliance that eliminates the need in physical tape and “pretends” to be a supported tape drive or autoloader, keeping all data on inexpensive, fast and high-capacity spinning disks.

    Even with explosive data growth, StarWind VTL fits the backup into backup window by accelerating it, so the process does not overlap with production time. Optionally, it creates additional copy of backup data for better safety. It is also available in a software-only form, as part of StarWind VSAN functionality. 

    StarWind VTL targets those, who need to replace existing tape backup infrastructure or accelerate it if regulatory requirements prohibit replacement. In case the goal is just virtualizing tape backup or creating a stretched backup infrastructure, StarWind Tape Redirector will come in handy. 

    Offer
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    Learn more about Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure
    Learn more about StarWind Virtual Tape Library
    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    TOSHIBA TEC Singapore, J&T Express Indonesia, Crowne Plaza Vietnam, Hermina Hospital Indonesia
    Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider21%
    Manufacturing Company14%
    Construction Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Educational Organization7%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Healthcare Company10%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Retailer9%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business72%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise3%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise52%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise57%
    Buyer's Guide
    Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is ranked 9th in HCI with 28 reviews while StarWind Virtual Tape Library is ranked 15th in HCI with 6 reviews. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is rated 8.0, while StarWind Virtual Tape Library is rated 10.0. The top reviewer of Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure writes "The solution offers straightforward setup, scalability, and manageability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind Virtual Tape Library writes "Flexible and reliable with helpful support". Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, whereas StarWind Virtual Tape Library is most compared with Red Hat Ceph Storage, HPE StoreVirtual, VMware vSAN and IBM Cloud Object Storage. See our Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library report.

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    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.