We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) 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 StarWind Virtual SAN management console is intuitive and easy to use."
"PowerShell library is pretty good feature as I created with APC PowerChute a script to put volumes on maintenance mode then turning off the StarWind nodes together with the VM and Hosts when UPS reaches 15 percent, this way after a blackout or electrical problems when turning servers on again, there is no issues for syncing or data loss due to energy interrupts."
"Being hardware agnostic is a must and definitely scored points for us."
"It also provides a high degree of mobility, as the virtual SAN can be moved relatively painlessly between on-site devices and the cloud."
"The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems."
"The most valuable feature is the managed service, which has been an important part of monitoring our critical infrastructure."
"Training is also easy as it is just one system to learn."
"The ability to choose our own hardware and our own vendors for this was hugely beneficial, as we had pre-existing relationships with vendors we wanted to maintain."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."
"The support team responds quickly."
"Dell PowerFlex is a one-stop-shop solution. Storage, compute, network, application monitoring, and support cases are all combined into one solution. It's very easy to administer compared to when you have a reference architecture where you need to design and build everything yourself. You would also then have to work with multiple vendors."
"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."
"The setup was very straightforward."
"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 support is highly responsive."
"The most valuable feature is Move, which allows you to migrate virtual machines from VM to AHV."
"The most valuable feature is the integration of all parts in Prism Element, the browser-based management tool."
"Nutanix has the best virtual desktop infrastructure."
"Technical support is okay."
"It has a user-friendly dashboard and interface."
"The administration console, automation, and the first cluster are all valuable features."
"One of the most valuable features of Nutanix is that it's easy to use. I love this solution—it's easy to maintain and update, and I think it's almost perfect."
"It is easy to use. One of the things they have as a design goal is to reduce complexity and simplify things."
"It would help us if the vendor continues to release software updates for earlier versions of the Windows operating systems."
"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."
"Proper training sessions should be included with the licensing."
"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."
"Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface."
"The most disappointing side of the application is the free edition. There used to be GUI attached. That has recently changed to only CLI management of the application."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"The product can include a more simple way of synchronization after a forced shutdown as the current process has a few more steps to check that hosts have synchronized and this can be automated."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"The installation is complex."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."
"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."
"If they can simplify the software slightly for the installation, that would make all the difference."
"Compatible with third party hardware, but it's still very limited."
"One of the improvements I would like to have is related to naming. It is getting confusing because they are using three-letter acronyms, which are more or less misleading. What I do not like is that they changed names and reused names. They had a meaning in the past and they are still using the names for something similar."
"The product requires a lot of resources."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with external storage using the fiber channel"
"The compatibility and integration of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could be improved. For example, we have a WAF application firewall and it does not work on this solution. Not all the OS's run on AOS. You need to have a newer version of an operating system if you want Nutanix to perfectly run all the different options."
"As of now, Acropolis and VMware cannot talk to each other. Until we have some kind of interface, it would be much better for Nutanix if they built an interface that can talk. Otherwise, if I have a VMware stack and I already have a Nutanix stack, I can create containers, I create clusters on VMware, I create clusters on Nutanix."
"I would like to see them utilize the spare storage that they use as a redundant space. I feel that now a lot of resources are wasted just for standby purposes because we are using data protection. Instead of utilizing those resources only when something happens, they can have an alternative so that we can utilize these resources all the time."
More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Dell PowerFlex is ranked 8th in HCI with 19 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 3rd in HCI with 194 reviews. Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.2, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, HPE Alletra dHCI and HPE Hyper Converged, whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Hyper-V. See our Dell PowerFlex vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report.
See our list of best HCI vendors.
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.
