We performed a comparison between Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"StarWind saved us about 80% of our storage costs over our old solution."
"It has reduced the amount of switching, network connections, etc., because the converged StarWind Virtual SAN allows us to connect high-speed network interfaces between different boxes instead of having to connect SANs via the network, then connect those two clusters together."
"It integrates (fully) with VMware and Veeam, my hypervisor, and backup vendors, so for me, all the puzzle pieces simply fit and work smoothly."
"The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."
"StarWind SANs come with outstanding support."
"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"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."
"Active-active HA provides top performance and redundancy."
"The ease of deployment is very good."
"This is a complete, very user-friendly product."
"It gives us a single dashboard to control multiple sites and multiple zones. It helps to do things on a single platform and data sharing is quite easy. The network and the security are easy to manage."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS has very good stability."
"It has been stable so far."
"The architecture of Nutanix is the best, and the virtualization we get, out of the box, is an advantage. Also, dedupe and compression are done natively, inside the platform, so there are no additional licenses. That adds value to it."
"We have had good feedback from our customers about this solution."
"The stability is good. This is the number-one product in that regard."
"With StarWind's Proactive monitoring we can go about our day helping our customers and not have to worry about our cluster's health."
"Customer service has been excellent. Any questions we have had have been answered quickly."
"The sales process is easy."
"The StarWind array has greatly improved our workflow internally as it is quite easy to use and provides robust features that allow us to provide anything our clients need quickly and efficiently."
"I do like that I can manage StarWind with a console running on my local desktop."
"Reliability and overall uptime are key as we're also hosting client environments in addition to our own."
"Being able to upgrade machines and software during business operations just by switching nodes has been a huge improvement. We"
"The hardware footprint is perfect. It fits in our rack perfectly, and we were able to condense a lot of physical servers we had. It has greatly eliminated the excess stuff in our server rack..."
"One main thing this product needs to work on is reporting."
"The system performs as expected, but we're always looking for performance improvements regarding the best utilization of NVMe disks."
"Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date."
"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."
"The software could benefit from more tooling to help with initial deployment."
"I wish the sync after a failure, such as hardware failure or power-related issues, for example, was faster."
"I wish they would improve the documentation for the beginner level as it's not very clear on the web page."
"The documentation is good. However, if compared with competitors, it could be enhanced and made more professional."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is new technology in a competitive market. Pricing is too high for a new product and requires better discounts to be able to compete with IBM, Dell EMC, and HP."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure lacks compatibility with certain older processors."
"It would be fantastic if there was a built-in layer, in Nutanix, that acted like a cloud interface. So far, we need to integrate a cloud interface on top of Nutanix for billing the usage for specific customers' domains. It would be great if a cloud gateway was built-in, inside Nutanix."
"One thing to keep in mind is that only experts can use it. It has to be in the proper hands, instead of going to XYZ people just for some cost savings. So lift-and-shift and migrations might be tricky, because it is not like a VMware."
"The GUI of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could be improved that can be done from the OEM side. It's a very basic stable web browser that they're using. It is not very inclusive."
"This solution offers excellent functionality but could use a stronger interface."
"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."
"USB dongle-based licenses do not allow us to directly locate the USB ports on Nutanix."
"It would be nice if the software told you a new version was available and prompted you to do the upgrade to keep everything up to date."
"The monitoring and reporting console can be improved in the sense that it can have more information on it."
"I honestly cannot think of anything else to be improved, as I rarely have to interact with the Starwind product."
"The overall product documentation and knowledgebase articles could use some rewriting and clarification."
"One area for improvement of the solution is that I had to get Windows, which I really didn't want because of the extra maintenance or overhead, as well as viruses, etc. It's going to take time for them to get their Linux to that point. They already have Linux but it's not as mature and they don't really support it on HCAs. They have it for individuals who want to use it on their servers, but not on HCAs."
"The only issue we have had was the issue of performance, however, that is only due to the fact that we purchased a mix of SSD and regular spindle drives, and restoring databases was slow as it was trying to restore the database using the spindle drives."
"We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed."
"The only critique I might have is that the support is overseas in Eastern Europe and, on occasion, there has been a language issue. But in general, they're as good as can be..."
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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 194 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Dell PowerFlex, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail, StorMagic SvSAN and Red Hat Ceph Storage. See our Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best HCI vendors.
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