We performed a comparison between StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and VxRail 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."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's quite easy to manage."
"I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN."
"In the three years that we have been using StarWind, the product has yet to cause us any problems."
"The StarWind products have enabled our organization to modernize stations where larger and more expensive equipment was not an option."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is a very mature software that supersedes its capabilities with my use cases."
"This solution enables us to make better cost-effective use of our existing hardware and leverage the current infrastructure at a higher level than we could before."
"The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."
"The solution has easily deployed instances for multiple fast-paced projects."
"Being able to log on to the GUI to see specific data and usage statistics, executing clones, starting and stopping VMs, etc., is great."
"The customer service has been the most valuable feature of the product to me."
"We also substantially reduced network complexity by eliminating that standalone SAN. That reduced complexity has allowed us to concentrate on improving other areas of our network."
"The pricing and discounts given by Starwind on the hardware were unmatched."
"Product functionality and performance are wonderful."
"Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."
"The product runs wonderfully and has already gone through several failure tests."
"It's a good product based on the features. You can upgrade the solution with only one click."
"It's a simple product, fast, and reliable."
"I have found that the admin deployment, monitoring off-premises, and the many services important features. Additionally, the solution has good integration."
"VxRail performs well in the VDI environment."
"The scalability of VxRail is very good."
"There are so many features, but if I have to choose, I would go for scale-out upgrades and performance. Scale-out upgrades are very valuable. Typically, when customers engage in virtualization, they're committing themselves to run many virtual machines on a fewer number of hosts. They'll have five or six hosts, and they will run all their virtualization on vSphere. They could be having anywhere from 50 to 100 or even more virtual machines. Once all these go into production, getting downtime or getting planned maintenance windows is extremely difficult. It is something that typically businesses will frown upon. With VxRail, you can just go ahead and add a node without disrupting the existing environment, which works very well. That's why scale-out upgrades are a key feature. Its performance is also valuable. It delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated."
"I like that there is a dependency on the storage controller."
"I have found the vSAN is highly flexible. The documentation is good and the interface of the solution is responsive and fast. The interface has everything you need to manage the solution, such as the VxRail and VMware integration. You can manage the hardware from within the VMware plasma pan."
"I had issues locating the documentation that applied to my version of StarWind vSAN."
"Management of VSAN itself could be improved. A Web UI for management would be great rather than an application installation. StarWind is testing a command center virtual appliance that I have installed in my environment."
"For someone entering the IT sector with little knowledge of storage, iSCSI, and virtual disks, they might not find the GUI immediately obvious."
"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."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."
"They require more media visibility."
"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."
"It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind."
"Perhaps the initial configuration and documentation could be a little clearer and simpler to follow."
"If I had to pick something to add to the product, it would be nice if you could have more than one user account on their command center VM."
"Updates need improvement."
"The only area that the product could improve would be user training."
"The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss."
"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."
"I honestly cannot think of anything else to be improved, as I rarely have to interact with the Starwind product."
"We'd like to see more automation capabilities in the future."
"The upgrade packages require a lot of bandwidth. This could be reduced for an improved experience."
"The solution could improve by having more storage performance because in some other solutions you can have a file system that can be mounted at several places at one time."
"When using hybrid nodes, such as VxRail, there should not be compression and deduplication, only in All-Flash nodes."
"We do not use the storage part of VxRail, we use Pure Storage to map out the VxRail because the disk performance from Pure Storage was far better than the performance of the disk on the inside of VxRail."
"VxRail could be easier to set up. It's tricky to configure the network properly and match the requirements."
"In the next release, maybe they could add in integration with the hyper-cloud so it will be easier to do the movement up and back to the cloud in order to scale in and scale out."
"Technically speaking, the vCenter and the administration of the integration of the vCenter could be improved."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
Try it today
Try it today
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in HCI with 42 reviews while VxRail is ranked 3rd in HCI with 53 reviews. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.8, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Flexible and easy to set up with excellent support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "It's built on platforms that have been in the industry for more than 15 years, so it's very stable". StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), StorMagic SvSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Dell PowerFlex and VMware vSAN, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Dell PowerFlex, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). See our StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. VxRail report.
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.
