Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series vs VMware vSAN comparison

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series vs. VMware vSAN

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Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the HCI category, the market share of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3% and it increased by 63.3% compared to the previous year. The market share of Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is 0.4% and it decreased by 42.7% compared to the previous year. The market share of VMware vSAN is 15.9% and it decreased by 20.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Unique Categories:

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

11.2%

No other categories found

Featured Reviews

reviewer2114511

New Business and New Products Manager at dualBASE

Feb 24, 2023

Flexible with good GUI and nice documentation

First of all, the flexibility and reliability are great. The ability to be managed by PowerShell scripts made the management of the system really easy and efficient. We're able to do remote operations or even some operations different from the standard ones (allowed by the GUI). It also runs under a Windows OS, so it is able to be installed in any virtualized system, independent from the Hypervisor itself. The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way. It also makes it very easy to deploy and configure. It has good documentation, and I did not need technical support once during the entire deployment.

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Austin Ajaegbu

Enterprise Information systems/Wintel Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 24, 2021

Allows for centralized management with great interconnectivity

My main use is server management and virtualization This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place. The most valuable feature is the interconnectivity, which allows me to use the system across my data centers and makes it easy…

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Eric Preudhomme

Products Manager at RCARRE SA

Feb 15, 2024

Provides seamless integration within the hypervisor core, providing stability and eliminating the need for additional VM gateways per node

There may be an opportunity for vSAN to explore new avenues for open-cycle solutions with the recent reorganization of Broadcom impacting VMware. We use VMware vSAN with 50 instances, but we must change the licensing. Broadcom buys VMware. We had been using the Dell VxRail solution. Due to Dell's cessation of collaboration with VMware and Broadcom's decision to overhaul the licensing model, our future with VxRail is uncertain. We can purchase VxRail with vSAN, which is integrated into Dell's portfolio. We lack assurance now that Dell and Broadcom are separate entities. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."

"It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” accessible by all hosts. StarWind cuts down virtualization cost and complexity by eliminating the need for a physical shared storage (SAN). -StarWind offers the Enterprise-level high availability (HA), deployed and easily configured . we get technical support from star wind team when implementation software and after setup if we face any issue."

"The StarWind Virtual SAN management console is intuitive and easy to use."

"It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly."

"Active-active work mode leads to true redundancy of storage and allows us to distribute the load between multiple nodes."

"When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."

"The StarWind tech support is extremely helpful, especially during the initial setup."

"The ability to run the software virtually on every virtualization platform and the ability to eliminate all storage vendor locking are the most valuable features."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"In our implementations, HDS Storage Virtualization has helped in migrating data with the least amount of downtime, compared to other storage technologies."

"The replication technology can move data faster than EMC MirrorView and requires less bandwidth. The Storage Virtualization technology is the most mature in the market, outside of IBM’s Storwize (which has a lot of compatibility issues, and EMC’s very expensive VPLEX solution); and it works."

"This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to continue our business needs and have higher visibility. It has definitely increased our business productivity levels."

"The performance has exceeded our expectations and exceeded our traditional converged infrastructure."

"This solution has a dashboard that you can log into and control if you need too while the VM is getting created."

"Technical support has been very good. They respond pretty fast, especially if we have a critical issue. Their responses have been great."

"The solution's technical support is good."

"The most valuable feature of VMware vSAN is the ease of management. VMware vSAN it's a part of VMware ESXi and when you do patching for VMware ESXi, VMware vSAN receives the patches too."

"The ability to have a disaster recovery option for our end-users by being able to use VDI and the vSANs, and the ability to do replication across multiple data centers, are valuable to us."

"The most valuable feature is the simplification of storage. We no longer need to deal with Fibre Channel and the external storage arrays."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."

"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."

"I want to suggest that the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure needs to be reduced."

"The documentation is good yet is still lacking in a few areas."

"Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet."

"I would like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure."

"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."

"Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

"An area for improvement would be technical support. In the next release, I would like to see more features added to make this a more complete solution."

"An update to its technology would be good. The G Series has been around for more than five years and HDS seriously needs to ramp up, since the competition has better performance at a lower cost with better features and functionalities. For example, it needs redirect on write Snapshot, preconfigured storage tiering with better IOPS, built-in deduplication technology on hybrid disk, etc."

"HDS reaches a ceiling depending on model. The G200 cannot transition to G400, the G400 can transition to G600 but cannot transition to G800, which is the top-end model."

"They can improve the manageability of the solution to make it more simple. It is not that complicated, but it will be good if they can make it more simple."

"I think it needs to be more cost-effective. I would also say that even though the capacity is good, there is also room for improvement there. Also, they could improve the security of the system."

"As no product is 100% perfect, the price for VMware vSAN could still be improved, though it is good when compared to some of its competitors."

"The ability to access SAN environments with fiber channels (or even NVMe) would be a good addition."

"Pricing is something of a concern."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered some intelligent monitoring."

"I would like to see replication as part of it. I would also like to see direct file access, being able to run SIF shares and NFS and the like. I think that would be critical to continuing the use of it going forward."

"Because of virtual storage, the system reaches reserve storage for its functions. It also consumes a certain amount of storage, which then results in the creation of a fault tolerance for the system. All of this adds to a lot of capacity being consumed in terms of storage for each drive for vSan. I find this to be one drawback of using vSan."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."

"This solution has a great price for the functionality."

"We are happy with the price."

"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."

"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."

"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The product’s pricing is a bit higher than other solutions."

"The vSAN is somewhat expensive to license."

"We are using the VMware vSAN ROBO which allows us to have a maximum of 25 virtual machines. The approximate cost is €10,000 for a perpetual license."

"I'd love for this product to be cheaper."

"The price is okay."

"If they could reduce the cost, it would be better. Licensing costs are something that they could take care of. If you are a smaller and strong IT team, then VMware vSAN is a very good product. If you want to expand in the service provider space, then you will have to go for an open-source solution like OpenStack. We are now looking at OpenStack because we sell licensing costs. We are a service provider, so the IT component data is a substantial component in our overall costing. We feel that OpenStack might help us to cut down the licensing cost. Therefore, we are looking at SAS storage instead of vSAN. SAS is open source, but it is not wise to have open source without having the backend support. We are using RedHat SAS, and it is an open-source solution. You can also have a free version, but we are using it with support from RedHat so that we have somebody to back us up in case we have a problem. If you do normal business, then IT expense is 1% or 2% of the total turnover. The higher licensing costs sometimes don't make difference to the big companies who are not service providers and are using it only for their internal use. For them, the IT cost is 1% or 2%, but for an IT service provider, the IT costs will go up to 15% to 16% of the total cost of the operations. This is where the licensing costs become irrelevant. For example, the licensing cost of using VMware, VC, and vSAN is 8% of my monthly revenue. Every month, I pay about $35,000, and, with the revised plan, it will be something like $50,000 or revenue of 600k per month, which means almost 8% of the revenue is going into VMware licensing. In a very competitive world, 8% as a cost element is huge. So, if I can bring it down to 2%, I save 6% in revenue expenditure. In terms of profit, 6% of 30% is something like another 25% increase in my profit. My profit can be almost 25%. It would be 20% to 25% in case I am able to handle the licensing costs and bring them to a very low level. Because these IT costs are substantial for us, that is why we are going with OpenStack. OpenStack has a limitation that it requires more hardware. There will be some increase in the hardware cost, but overall we will save 5% to 6% of our licensing cost by using OpenStack."

"VMware is not a cost effective solution, especially if you have a Microsoft shop. In this case, you would have to purchase the VMware license when there are already Hyper-V solutions that could do it for much cheaper."

"It is expensive. It should be cheaper. It has a perpetual license as well as a subscription-based license, but they are moving towards subscription-based licenses."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

10%

Media Company

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

47%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?

It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. Also, consider the paid version if...

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings t...

What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

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While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...

Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...

How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?

HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Comparisons

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 16% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 4% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Compared 43% of the time

VxRail vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Compared 34% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Compared 9% of the time

More Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware vSAN

Compared 11% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN

Compared 7% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs VMware vSAN

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

StarWind Virtual SAN

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

HCI

Download Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series product report

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series report

VMware vSAN

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

HDS Unified Compute Platform, Hitachi UCP, Hitachi UCP Select

vSAN

Learn More

StarWind

Hitachi Vantara

VMware

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.

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) is the company's product for converged infrastructure (CI), combining resources server, storage, networking, virtualization, and software management.

VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.

VMware vSAN Features

VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Storage policy-based management (SPBM): VMware vSAN supports storage policy-based management for automated management of storage profiles.

Software-defined data-at-rest encryption: With this VMware vSAN feature, you can prevent unauthorized access of data at rest.

Multiple nodes: VMware vSAN provides clusters that can include as few as 2 nodes or as many as 64 nodes.

High security and availability: VMware vSAN offers stretched clusters, allowing more than one virtualization host server to be used in the same setup, promoting higher security as well as availability.

Deduplication: VMware vSAN’s deduplication compresses data to ensure efficient storage management and security.

HCI mesh updates: VMware vSAN clusters can share storage capacity with non-HCI Sphere clusters and can adopt HCI without having to scale computing resources and storage or replace existing servers.

Simplified file services: With VMware vSAN’s file services, backup of file shares is simplified. You can use APIs that allow backup and recovery software vendors to integrate with your VMware vSAN file services, which enables backup software to track new data and add scalability enhancements to files.

VMware vSAN Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO): VMware vSAN helps you reduce upfront costs for businesses because it can be easily deployed on inexpensive x86 servers. In addition, its highly scalable infrastructure and quick deployment also save organizations time and money, making it an efficient storage solution.

Good manageability: VMWare vSAN is easy to set up, manage, and provision, without sacrificing performance.

Scalability: VMware vSAN is agile and allows administrators to scale storage on demand, quickly, and efficiently via policies and rules.

Simplicity: VMWare vSAN is simple to configure since it is embedded in the vSphere hypervisor. Installing it using the vSphere Web Client can be done quickly.

Reduced risk: VMWare vSAN reduces the risk associated with digital transformations by utilizing existing tools, skill sets, and solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.

PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”

A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”

Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Asia Capital Reinsurance, RMZ, Cigniti Technologies, SPAR, Infosys

Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series vs. VMware vSAN