We performed a comparison between Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series and VxRail based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI."The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."
"It allows you to use ANY consumer or enterprise HDDs and SSDs, and that's a really great thing!"
"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to leverage our server infrastructure more completely without the need to add more hardware."
"This solution has a very good user interface, with simple administration/management."
"The StarWind products have enabled our organization to modernize stations where larger and more expensive equipment was not an option."
"When using new (warranty) servers, you can forget about the storage service for several years. The users will not even notice the failure of two servers out of three."
"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."
"Their support staff is comprised of true experts who can also communicate clearly."
"The replication technology can move data faster than EMC MirrorView and requires less bandwidth. The Storage Virtualization technology is the most mature in the market, outside of IBM’s Storwize (which has a lot of compatibility issues, and EMC’s very expensive VPLEX solution); and it works."
"This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place."
"In our implementations, HDS Storage Virtualization has helped in migrating data with the least amount of downtime, compared to other storage technologies."
"VxRail has given us a lot of tools in a one-stop-shop environment."
"You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."
"When we have a resource contention, we can easily increase the capacity."
"Our clients value being able to upgrade with one click or a few clicks."
"It's somewhat hard to speak about specific features, but I like VxRail's simplicity and ease of use. It's a decent solution for customers with a small footprint. If you're operating a big data center, it's not easy to position VxRail or HCI solutions, but when you have a small customer managing many different components, it's easier to work only with one solution."
"This product has given us clear visibility into what we need technology-wise to grow."
"The feature that I have found most valuable with VxRail is its upgrade. Because if you talk about the normal ESX process you have to upgrade the firmware, the bios, and you have to manage the compatibility. You have to do a lot of things. But in the case of VxRail, it's a single upgrade, end to end. You simply upload the bundle, click next, it will do some pre-checks, if those pre-checks pass, it will update everything one by one. It will put one ESX in the maintenance and move other VM's to another mode. There is no downtime to the VM's."
"The stability continues to get better and better. It's pretty reliable."
"A great feature would be a wizard and to include a new disk in the SAN. At the moment, including a new disk requires several steps - some that must be done at the OS level and others in each node."
"It would help us if the vendor continues to release software updates for earlier versions of the Windows operating systems."
"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."
"I would like additional documentation regarding possible networking configurations with 10GbE switching."
"They need to improve the speed of the interfaces, thus allowing for better traffic on the network."
"Management of VSAN itself could be improved. A Web UI for management would be great rather than an application installation. StarWind is testing a command center virtual appliance that I have installed in my environment."
"Besides not being able to use any filesystem, I do not have any additional cons."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"An update to its technology would be good. The G Series has been around for more than five years and HDS seriously needs to ramp up, since the competition has better performance at a lower cost with better features and functionalities. For example, it needs redirect on write Snapshot, preconfigured storage tiering with better IOPS, built-in deduplication technology on hybrid disk, etc."
"HDS reaches a ceiling depending on model. The G200 cannot transition to G400, the G400 can transition to G600 but cannot transition to G800, which is the top-end model."
"An area for improvement would be technical support. In the next release, I would like to see more features added to make this a more complete solution."
"It should not be deployed on one hypervisor. There should be multiple hypervisors supported like Hyper-V or KVM."
"My customers want more storage for university databases."
"When using hybrid nodes, such as VxRail, there should not be compression and deduplication, only in All-Flash nodes."
"They should add automation and activation going forward."
"The support protocols have changed after Broadcom acquired VMware."
"I would like to see integration with vCenter if possible."
"What I did not like so much was the amount of VMware that you have to put in your system related to the VxRail."
"Its price needs to be improved. It is very expensive. NSX should be licensed together. It will make the network virtualization layer more usable. It would be better if they come together in a bundle, not separately."
Earn 20 points
Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is ranked 23rd in HCI while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 120 reviews. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is rated 8.0, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series writes "Allows for centralized management with great interconnectivity". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN and HPE Alletra dHCI, whereas VxRail is most compared with VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and FlexPod XCS.
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