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StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs VxRail comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

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

StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in HCI
17th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (13th)
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 14.9%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VxRail14.9%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library0.5%
Other84.6%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

KellyVon Der Heyden - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalable solution with a good technical support team
We use the solution for data backups and ransomware protection The solution is compatible with cloud storage platforms, such as Amazon S3. Also, it efficiently reduces the storage cost for archiving. The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough. We have been…
Rami Jadallah - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades
The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"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."
"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."
"The compute is good and we have not had any issues with the vSAN."
"The most valuable feature in the VxRail solution is the software that binds the management portal and its ease of use of managing the environment. The guys don't have to worry about getting multiple solutions specialist. You can have one person looking at and managing the whole environment."
"Enterprise is a complete solution that includes performance, backups and disaster recovery."
"It is scalable. When you are buying it, you have to buy a minimum of three nodes. After that, if you want to add more nodes, you can buy can buy them. You can also add-on additional compute and storage."
"The updating of the features was one aspect of the solution that made us decide to use it."
"The feature that I have found most valuable with VxRail is its upgrade. Because if you talk about the normal ESX process you have to upgrade the firmware, the bios, and you have to manage the compatibility. You have to do a lot of things. But in the case of VxRail, it's a single upgrade, end to end. You simply upload the bundle, click next, it will do some pre-checks, if those pre-checks pass, it will update everything one by one. It will put one ESX in the maintenance and move other VM's to another mode. There is no downtime to the VM's."
"The solution is easy to use. When turning on a server or a machine that is required for, deployment or quality assurance, the dynamic deployment of resources is good."
"It is very powerful. We find that to be the most valuable aspect. The movement of devices between nodes is very easy."
 

Cons

"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"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 main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"When we have a vulnerability or we need to upgrade VxRail, it takes a long time. It takes eight hours each time we upgrade."
"Lifecycle management (LCM) should be enhanced"
"A disadvantage is that the initial first deployment can be complicated."
"We spend around six months waiting for a confirmation and firmware upgrade to confirm this step."
"I would like to see Dell take a crack at simplifying the process of moving from a node to a cluster and assembling everything into the appliance. It would be great if Dell could provide a pathway where a customer could actually install it without the certifications. Of course, I can't say how you would dumb down something so complex."
"I would like to see VxRail add duplication features to its hybrid solution."
"The licensing costs are too expensive. They should work on their pricing model."
"Sometimes during the upgrade process of VxRail, we experience errors that have nothing to do with reality and I cannot troubleshoot them without calling Dell and bringing in an engineer to figure it out."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"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."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The current VxRail pricing structure is quite opaque for me, especially considering the recent changes."
"VxRail is very cost-effective and affordable in the long term. It is more recommended when it comes to financial life, but it may depend upon the license. VxRail comes with VMware licensing, which may not be that cost-effective as compared to others. With VMware, it's an auto check competition. VMware is an expensive solution, especially for Nutanix. Nutanix have their own hypervisor called Acronis, which is very cost-effective against the VMware. Nutanix is cheaper for the hardware but not for the software. If you ask the Nutanix partners to deploy Nutanix over Cisco servers or Dell EMC servers, the cost will be higher. Nutanix wants to compete financially. Therefore, they propose their software over the Supermicro server, which is a very cheap Chinese server. In fact, I don't like their terms of service. HyperFlex has the highest price, and it is very expensive. I don't know why. It may be because this is a UCS system, which comes from Cisco and is already expensive. When it comes to HyperFlex, they need the labor to deploy Hyper-V, Citrix, or any other hypervisor."
"While one could argue, from a strictly corporate standpoint, that the cost of VxRail has been in the higher range, the true evaluation lies in the return on investment."
"It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."
"VxRail is an expensive solution."
"There is a permanent vSAN license included since it is required, but vCenter\ESXi host licensing should be validated in the purchase process."
"The licensing of vSAN and VMware for different editions of VxRail is not easy."
"VxRail is expensive because it's based on VMware and V-SAN. The price is not the cheapest. The technical support is expensive, but it is a good service."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

No data available
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.