We performed a comparison between Cisco Hyperflex HX series and VxRail based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: In our comparison, VxRail is the preferred solution. VxRail is easy to use and performs well without causing undue stress to operating systems. The competitive price and overall cost-effectiveness make it an easy choice for many organizations.
"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."
"VSAN works great; it's very easy to install, configure, and manage."
"Before VSAN, hypervisor configuration changes and updates resulted in VM outages. Now, downtime is dramatically reduced."
"This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is essentially hardware agnostic, allowing us to build out a specific hardware layer based upon the customer's unique requirements."
"With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability."
"The support has been amazing and quick to reply."
"The biggest benefit was that it allowed us to provide SAN services on a limited hardware budget."
"Scalability is easy and simple."
"Cisco provides the ability to configure BIOS, something that no one else can do, on a remote basis. That's really helpful sometimes. The bus-snooping alteration tool for BIOS is fantastic. That's one of the game-changing features that Cisco alone has at this point."
"This is not the only product we use, so we have other solutions to compare it with. We can compare different products and different vendors and tell our customers which products have which advantages and disadvantages so that they can leverage these products in their own environment. This product helps us to understand the customer's needs and what issues they can run into."
"The solution is stable."
"I find the usability very valuable."
"It is a complete package. For any kind of on-premises hyper-converged solution, we usually have to separate networks, but Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a complete solution. It has its own network and storage. The storage part is the most valuable feature."
"The price of the solution is good, especially when it comes to complex network solutions, such as UCS and Connect."
"I love the Cisco design, the visual interface to manage and use the platform."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the fact that the storage is integrated with the VxRail so I don't have to go in between systems when I have to monitor my storage."
"A valuable feature of the solution is that it allows everything to be integrated into a single model, comprised of hardware and software."
"I have found that the admin deployment, monitoring off-premises, and the many services important features. Additionally, the solution has good integration."
"We were able to speed up our gaming software, which was a big plus."
"It is very powerful. We find that to be the most valuable aspect. The movement of devices between nodes is very easy."
"You don't need to think about compatibility of components."
"Enterprise is a complete solution that includes performance, backups and disaster recovery."
"Besides not being able to use any filesystem, I do not have any additional cons."
"I would like an automated installation/configuration despite the fact that their service is very collaborative, a customer should be able to deploy the solution by themselves."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."
"The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own."
"I would like to see options for automated notifications of any changes, including, for example, synchronization issues."
"I am expecting to see it more user-friendly in the future."
"While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage."
"I would like for them to develop integration with other technologies, like SD Access. It's still lacking an enhancement management player."
"The product does not have a cloud version...The product should be made more flexible in terms of integration capabilities."
"Cisco is a bit more challenging in terms of deployment. The admin must be knowledgeable in order to complete the task. Without that knowledge, it will be difficult to complete."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex."
"Deployment scripts can be improved since several clans need to be created before the deployment effectively works."
"The initial setup of the Cisco HyperFlex HX platform was medium-level difficult. It's a little bit different from traditional servers. It takes getting used to the learning curve."
"I would have liked it to be able to back up the system to a cloud, to be able to work from any other place"
"Unlike other options, you need to pay a subscription to Cisco yearly instead of paying for the hardware outright, which makes it more expensive in the long run."
"The licensing costs are too expensive. They should work on their pricing model."
"We would like to see integrating with Nutanix. Currently, we are working on integrating the two to see if there is any value in doing so."
"if we're looking at costs, Nutanix will win because it allows flexibility in the type of hardware you can use."
"It would be nice if the update process was shortened and that patching would be simpler."
"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."
"A disadvantage is that the initial first deployment can be complicated."
"A more containerized approach in regards to the interface would be better."
"They should have better compatibility with other processors, such as AMD processors."
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is ranked 8th in HCI with 90 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 117 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is rated 8.0, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series writes "A fast and easy deployment that allows secure access to our medical applications ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is most compared with VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and HPE Hyper Converged. See our Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series 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.
