We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and Dell PowerFlex 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."We are running Hyper-V on twin servers in failover, and being able to manage servers from anywhere I need to, virtually, has been a game changer."
"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."
"The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run."
"Before VSAN, hypervisor configuration changes and updates resulted in VM outages. Now, downtime is dramatically reduced."
"It's quite easy to manage."
"The fact that we can expand our storage and add on to our compute nodes easily and how amazing the StarWind technical support team is really adding value to our purchase."
"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."
"A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic."
"Auto-tiering to obtain performance at a lower cost without the customer having to purchase ultra-fast storage is great."
"For us, fault tolerance is the most important feature of DataCore."
"SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions."
"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."
"Good security with this solution."
"Oracle OLTP benchmark to test how it improves the performance while using flash drive NVMe."
"It allows data to be available from two DataCore servers."
"The interface is user-friendly."
"The solution is scalable."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"The program is stable."
"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. The most important aspects are ease of management, as well as ease of configuration, allowing them to attach additional nodes and resources for the applications."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The StarWind Management Console is available only for Microsoft Windows/Windows Server, and should also be available for Linux and macOS, as it would reduce implementation costs."
"It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery."
"Performance when in storage-separate configuration needs to be improved."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
"A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is."
"If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier."
"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"
"Updates seem to be non-existent."
"There is room for improvement in the graphical interface."
"The solution is constantly evolving."
"I think an easier way to open a service call, right through the DataCore GUI, would be an improvement, especially when there is an urgent issue."
"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."
"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."
"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."
"Problem detection could be easier. It should help customers identify problems very quickly because it's not easy to analyze on the platform today."
"Its interface could be better."
"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."
"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."
"Needs some more monitoring tools."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 7th in HCI with 54 reviews while Dell PowerFlex is ranked 8th in HCI with 19 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.2, while Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of DataCore SANsymphony writes "Robust with good replication and access protection ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Infrastructure management solution that offers rapid provisioning of computer storage but the APIs and enablers for custom automation could be improved". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage, StorMagic SvSAN and VxRail, whereas Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and HPE SimpliVity. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. Dell PowerFlex report.
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