We performed a comparison between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and VMware vSAN based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: VMware vSAN wins out in this comparison. The main difference between the two solutions is that Cisco Hyperflex HX Series users find deployment to be difficult, and also say the solution uses a lot of memory and hardware resources. In addition, they do not mention an ROI.
"The failover redundancy is why we bought this product and it has never let us down."
"You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage."
"The main benefit is that StarWind is almost maintenance-free."
"The ability to keep data accessible even in the event of hardware failures is highly valued, as it ensures business continuity."
"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
"It's quite easy to manage."
"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."
"Stretch cluster allows us to warranty a service for the customer."
"It increases efficiency, decreases the cost, and manages the network in one single way. That's the most important thing."
"It is scalable and easy to use."
"The most valuable features are scalability and the easy operation - if it works. You can configure everything from just one window."
"It's very easy to use and quite a mature product."
"Great integration with backup software."
"Easily facilitates remote work opportunities with storage and compute resources."
"Our customers have seen ROI in terms of the time they save troubleshooting."
"The most valuable feature for our customers is vMotion. It allows them to shut down virtual machines and migrate them to others servers."
"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."
"Technical support is good."
"It uncoupled the idea of proprietary technology and component capabilities. It is basically a proprietary technology for a cost-effective infrastructure."
"It allows us to put our infrastructure in remote locations and still get the same performance we get from our onsite SAN solutions."
"The product's initial setup phase was very straightforward."
"The scalability has been quite good."
"The most important thing is the simplicity of the product. It is a well-established product with good stability."
"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."
"Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device could be a good feature and nice to have as we are not always on our desk."
"The system performs as expected, but we're always looking for performance improvements regarding the best utilization of NVMe disks."
"It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."
"Ongoing improvements in read and write performance would help meet increasingly demanding workloads."
"The system failovers properly on its own without too much worry."
"Management tools could be improved, sometimes the usage seems to be slowed down and confusing. A native web interface could also be an option. I love to see in the future port of the software on a general Linux distribution like RedHat or Ubuntu in order to avoid windows license costs. I would also like to see features like erasure coding implemented. On the VSAN software, I would like to see some improvements in the storage pools (eliminate the usage of the file as a data container and use the raw partition)."
"I'd prefer it if a remote console was provided."
"The product needs work in the area of deduplication which currently is inefficient."
"There are sometimes issues with memory failure."
"Lacks easy integration with other vendors."
"The scalability could use improvement."
"They should give us a little more information about how to use the CLI and offer more commands."
"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 setup was complex, especially since we usually do all the planning, sizing, and workflows before integration."
"I would like to see more analytics. It could use better infographs in the HyperFlex Connect on how traffic is running in the network. If you were reaching any capacity issues on the Fabric Interconnects, it should be able to cool all of the servers and Fabric Interconnects, then possibly integrate it with, e.g., Nexus Series switches. This should all be available in a single pane of glass."
"This solution is not great for large file shares/object/rich media repository."
"Its installation should be easier, and its price should be cheaper. It would be good for the product if they can include the data locality feature."
"This product is very expensive."
"VMware vSAN could improve by having faster reload time and a single point of failure. Resynchronization of many hardware could be better. If you have an outage of a disc or a full system, the replication time is too slow. This has room for improvement."
"On the DevOps side, if there could be more automation it would be more helpful."
"We would like to see even more storage capacity."
"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."
"I am looking for more of a software-defined storage platform that uses different protocols, such as iSCSI, NFS, and CIS, and maybe also has an object as part of that. They should 100% make it more of a storage-based product where it is not linked just to VMware, and it also has NFS and iSCSI built-in at a scalable level. They should turn it more into a dedicated storage-as-a-service platform instead of just being built into the VMware kernel. Their level one and level two support is not at all good, and it should be improved."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in HCI with 90 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 227 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is rated 8.0, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] writes "A fast and easy deployment that allows secure access to our medical applications ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is most compared with VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Pure Storage FlashArray.
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