We performed a comparison between Dell vSAN Ready Nodes and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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."The features that I found most valuable are ease of use of the software that StarWind offers - with the first setup being a bit painful."
"The vSAN provides full redundancy for storage while reclaiming some rack space."
"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
"Given the high availability of the server cluster, we were able to reduce separate physical servers onto one hyper-converged cluster - this saved in OPEX and CAPEX costs immediately, along with licensing costs of the Windows Server licenses."
"It's quite easy to install."
"The user interface for this application is amazing."
"The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."
"The management was very easy and I was able to find all that I need in the software dashboard."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"I have found the most important features of Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are the capacity to manage the storage because the storage is built in the servers. The type of profiles you can attribute to the storage is a benefit. You can manage the storage by profiles. Overall the solution is a good speed and performance."
"The most valuable feature is the set of user tools that are available."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"The product is useful for DR and other things."
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is the flexibility of the nodes. Additionally, if there are any critical issues they update us through emails. The issues are taken care of remotely on the system."
"No concerns regarding the footprint in the data center."
"Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
"The added speed of using standard HDD and SSD meant we could increase what services are stored on the servers without having to have additional servers."
"What makes it valuable is the high-availability. In the education field, when you've got students in classrooms, any loss of service disrupts the lessons to a point that the whole lesson is affected. For part of the business which isn't business-critical, to have a little bit of a hiccup wouldn't be such a big thing, but here, it's the high availability of service that is important."
"High-availability is what I bought it for."
"StarWind is very resilient and built off of quality vendor hardware."
"With proactive support, StarWind deploys and configures the solution for you."
"The low cost of this solution has also made a big difference in our budget, which has been very helpful."
"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"
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
"Although minor, some of the documentation could be rewritten to be clearer."
"The documentation is good. However, if compared with competitors, it could be enhanced and made more professional."
"I struggled when bit figuring out how to go about doing the evaluation."
"Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users."
"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."
"Some configuration options still demand service restarting."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
"The solution doesn't scale."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes must be flexible since it is complex in designing concepts. It needs to improve stability. The product should integrate with the public cloud."
"The solution should provide daily task alerts for data recovery maintenance, usage, and other instructions to ensure the systems are in a good status."
"There is room for improvement in the maintenance pricing. Maintenance isn't difficult, but the prices are high and ridiculous. Some customers feel it is better to go with a new solution rather than renew this one."
"There is room for improvement in the setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."
"I honestly cannot think of anything else to be improved, as I rarely have to interact with the Starwind product."
"Maybe they could have a support portal that you can have direct access to a current support representative."
"The overall product documentation and knowledgebase articles could use some rewriting and clarification."
"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."
"We have to pay for support, which is high-end support. That can be expensive, at least for us."
"The management console could use a facelift."
"The only issues are when Hyper V itself has limitations and I'd love to see support or enhancement in the area of direct-attached GPU cards."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is ranked 11th in HCI with 14 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews. Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is rated 8.6, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes writes "Offers good performance and is easy to use". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series, Dell PowerFlex and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
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