StorMagic SvSAN vs VxRail comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between StorMagic SvSAN 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.
To learn more, read our detailed StorMagic SvSAN vs. VxRail Report (Updated: March 2024).
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
"It is extremely stable.""The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system.""It eliminates the use of expensive physical shared storage.""The most valuable feature is the fact that the nodes are Active/Active, and allow us to do upgrades on any node without any downtime.""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.""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.""The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems.""It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"The most valuable feature of StorMagic SvSAN is its high availability. We have not had any downtime or data loss. Business continuity is highly important.""It gives zero downtime and it works with two nodes rather than three nodes, unlike other solutions.""We compared two solutions for this use case, but we went with StorMagic because it had more capabilities than the others. It's also more reliable, especially in production environments that require availability and sustainability.""It helps us prevent any data loss while working with the failover clusters.""This synchronization is easy with StorMagic, and we can establish availability between servers.""StorMagic SvSAN is a very effective solution and the interface is good.""What I found most valuable in StorMagic SvSAN is integration. As a software-defined storage solution, it's also very easy to use and it's the trend in the market today. StorMagic SvSAN also made the customer happy because the customer could use his existing hardware with it. The customer had rack-mounted storage, so he didn't want to purchase a dedicated hardware for storage purposes. He just upgraded his hard disk drives.""StorMagic SvSAN's best feature is that it is platform agnostic."

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"It is very powerful. We find that to be the most valuable aspect. The movement of devices between nodes is very easy.""t's a very good solution with multiple options with VxRail series like based on customer requirements whether they're focused on compute, storage, scalability and high performance, etc. Whether a customer you are going to start your IT Infrastructure footprint with a limited budget, you have freedom of choice and non-disruptive expansion in the future, whether in the main data center or branches. Any idea coming in system admins mind to run this setup continuously and keep service 100% 24/7 is possible in this product line. Hyper-converged appliances allow a datacenter in a box approach, with G, E P, Vand P series.""VxRail can manage the whole cluster at the same time, so it's easy to expand. VxRail has more features vSAN ReadyNodes that make it easier to implement from scratch.""I like the managed updates. They are really nice in VxRail. Everything comes packaged and the updates are much easier than with other solutions that I've had to work with.""It's a simple product, fast, and reliable.""The simplicity and manageability of VxRail are most valuable. We have a very good experience with this product. Its stability and scalability are also very good.""VxRail performs well in the VDI environment.""Low-maintenance solution with hyperscale feature so it has the ability to utilize the resources for the VMware cluster setup on which Citrix VDA runs."

More VxRail Pros →

Cons
"The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved.""Perhaps the developer should refine the product management through PowerShell.""We don't really have any issues with this product.""I did not see any indication that StarWinds vSAN is a usable solution with non-GUI instances of Hyper-V.""When you will cease your contract with StarWind (for support) your product won't be updated and that is a big selling point, especially for us, as we have loads of products from StarWind.""If there was one thing we could request, it would be the ability to shrink volumes. For example, we want to be able to decrease in the size of the volume.""When StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere nodes go offline unexpectedly, the nodes have to re-sync disks fully which takes a long time. We had a power failure and when both nodes came online, VMware vSphere didn't see StarWind disks before I manually re-scanned them form ESXi administration console even though it should happen automatically""An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"The deployment of StorMagic SvSAN is very small. However, you need some time to do it. It's important to make a test deployment before the real deployment.""In terms of what could be improved in StorMagic SvSAN, I don't have a major issue with it, but its user interface should be more customer-oriented.""If we want to want to replicate the VM to the cloud, or off-site, it does not allow it because of asynchronous. There is no option available.""In the next release, StorMagic SvSAN should include multi-node clusters, which would allow storage spaces to be used more efficiently.""There are two features missing: there's no REST API functionality, and there is no date duplication in it.""The only improvement area I can see is their licensing. For example, the memory caching feature is only available in an advanced license. Normally, it's in a standard license. It would be better if they had memory caching features in the product. Some backup features should also be in the product""They should enable data compression deduplication features for the platform."

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"VxRail should try to improve the pricing.""At present, VxRail is a hyperconverged state of the art product being installed in a legacy way. We need hyperconverged install teams.""All updates are supposed to be done through VxRail, however, the vCenter actually showed that there was an update it needed. I've just started using the product. I didn't know what I was doing. I actually updated my vCenter and that actually threw the VxRail system offline. We had to spend some time trying to get that working again. If possible, they should make the process a bit more clear so we don't make mistakes like this in the future. There should maybe be some sort of pop-up that can direct you.""The initial setup between the different Dell departments is fragmented. The engineers who come to rack/stack and do the initial config should be trained on all the areas and work with the different Dell departments whilst they are onsite to give a smoother install and better experience for customer.""It could be improved by having more information on the integration portion of ACI.""The agility of the support team to provide you with better solutions should be improved. VxRail also has to be improved in terms of simplicity. Adding a simple node seemed like quite a project.""Its price needs to be improved. It is very expensive. NSX should be licensed together. It will make the network virtualization layer more usable. It would be better if they come together in a bundle, not separately.""The initial setup is very complex."

More VxRail 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 →

  • "It's fairly cheap when compared to other options. But it can be improved as some features may not be available in the standard license. The vendor positions it as an edge product, so it isn't suitable to compare with VMware vSAN or Nutanix because that's another product altogether."
  • "The pricing of StorMagic SvSAN is fairly good because if you compare it with VMware, it's at a better price. This is an important thing to remember."
  • "The licensing cost is $7,000 per two nodes for two terabytes."
  • "70% cheaper than competitors and provides all the enterprise feature requirements at low cost."
  • "The price of the solution is reasonable. Our budget was two terabytes and the price met our use case well."
  • "The product has good pricing."
  • More StorMagic SvSAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "There is a permanent vSAN license included since it is required, but vCenter\ESXi host licensing should be validated in the purchase process."
  • "Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."
  • "Be mindful of your storage needs now and for the future."
  • "Compare the VxRail product to Nutanix. Nutanix has more features, but its pricing is higher."
  • "Compare it to what you spent on your last solution."
  • "We most likely pay yearly for support. The cost was justified by now because it stays up and I don't have to constantly open tickets. I probably rebooted the system once or twice. We haven't replaced any discs in the storage, we haven't had to do any disc replacements, so it just runs. You pay a little more but you cut down on the maintenance."
  • "The price is a little bit on the higher side but the system and management are so quick and easy that it's worth it for the customer."
  • "We were expecting Dell EMC to bring us something that would work very quickly and easily, but also be at a reasonable price point, and they did."
  • More VxRail 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 helps us prevent any data loss while working with the failover clusters.
    Top Answer:They should enable data compression deduplication features for the platform.
    Top Answer:HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one,… more »
    Top Answer:While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an… more »
    Top Answer:VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    StorMagic
    VCE VxRail
    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.

    StorMagic SvSAN is simple hyperconverged storage used to eliminate downtime. It provides high availability with two nodes per cluster, and boasts users among thousands of organizations to keep mission-critical applications and data online and available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

    SvSAN is a lightweight solution that has been designed specifically for small-to-medium-sized businesses and edge computing environments such as retail stores, manufacturing plants and even oil rigs at sea.

    SvSAN provides organizations with a simple, 'set and forget' solution that enables lightweight high availability as a virtual SAN (VSAN) with a witness VM that can be local, in the cloud, or as-a-service, and support up to 1,000 2-node clusters. It provides a low barrier to entry with capacity-based licensing and minimal hardware requirements, allowing organizations to use existing equipment. Plus, any IT professional can deploy and manage 1,000 sites as easily as 1, with automation tools and scripts.

    SvSAN gives organizations choice and control by allowing configurations of any x86 server models and storage types, even mixed within a cluster, while vSphere, Hyper-V or KVM hypervisors can be used. It is built to perform, with code that eliminates performance bottlenecks and caching features to boost performance and prevent over-provisioning. SvSAN accommodates future growth and technologies too, with support for containers and VMs, and allows compute and storage to be scaled easily and independently.

    SvSAN's additional features help to deliver 100% uptime with synchronous mirroring and no single point of failure, even with poor, unreliable networks, and non-disruptive hardware and software upgrades. Disaster protection is provided with capability for stretched clusters that reduce risk, plus extensive integrations with backup and DR providers and the option to add a third node to clusters. SvSAN also ensures data security with FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption, software RAID options and the elimination of split-brain risk.

    VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance based on VMware virtual SAN Software and is jointly engineered and built with VMware, for VMware, to enhance Vmware. VxRail software-defined architecture simplifies compute, storage, virtualization, and management. It will safeguard performance, reliability, and flexibility across your organization with a broad range of workloads and applications from business-critical to next-gen. With VxRail, you are covered.

    VxRail is a single turn-key appliance that is a validated, fully integrated, pre-configured,  pre-tested solution and offers non-disruptive scaling. Every node includes compute storage and IO. All-flash configurations can contain between 12-28 cores per node. The storage capacity options run from 7.6 TB to 19TB with either 256 GB or 512GB of memory. Hybrid appliances may have 6-20 cores per node, 3.6 TB to 10 TB of storage capacity, and 24GB to 256 GB of memory. 

    VxRail offers high availability fail-over, an active/active stretch cluster, and VSan Kernal integration. VxRail is a power-edged server with APIs built on automation. There are over 15 million different combinations of hardware available with VxRail. VxRail provides a simple, cost-effective solution that solves a large range of use cases. Additionally, you also get a mixed workloads automated system that is backed with fully automated system updates, and complete end-to-end lifecycle management all in a single two-rack appliance. 

    VxRail is a value-added suitable solution for distributed small to mid-sized enterprises, remote offices, private clouds, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). You choose the deployment option that best suits your organizational needs, from appliance to integrated rack offerings, with or without networking, and it will be delivered to you, ready to deploy out-of-box. 

    If you know VMware, you know VxRail.

    VxRail Features and Benefits

    • Seamlessly accelerate deployment to a hybrid cloud 
    • Fast data center modernization
    • Create developer-ready Kubernetes platforms
    • Powerful performance and reliability
    • Improve and simplify operational efficiency
    • Excellent integration 
    • Save time
    • Reduce costs

    Reviews from Real Users

    VxRail is an all-in-one solution: "You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."

    VxRail is remarkable: “The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail…

    VxRail is a powerful performer: “...VxRail 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.” 

    Offer
    30-days for free

    Try it today

    Learn more about StorMagic SvSAN
    Learn more about VxRail
    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    Sheetz Inc., Giant Eagle, RWE Renewables, Keiser Corp., TDK, Oxford University, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Rommelsbacher, Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort, Eugen Forschner GmbH
    World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
    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 Company29%
    Manufacturing Company29%
    Engineering Company14%
    Import And Exporter14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Government8%
    Healthcare Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Insurance Company8%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government10%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise20%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    StorMagic SvSAN vs. VxRail
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about StorMagic SvSAN vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    StorMagic SvSAN is ranked 14th in HCI with 9 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 112 reviews. StorMagic SvSAN is rated 8.2, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of StorMagic SvSAN writes "The best choice for performance and price". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". StorMagic SvSAN is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, DataCore SANsymphony, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). See our StorMagic SvSAN vs. VxRail 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.