We performed a comparison between Sangfor HCI and VMware vSAN based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sangfor HCI and VMware vSAN come out about equal in this comparison. Sangfor HCI has an edge when it comes to pricing, but VMware vSAN has an edge when it comes to ease of deployment.
"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"Besides being 80% cheaper than the other alternatives, the simplicity makes reconfiguration and support much easier."
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is a very mature software that supersedes its capabilities with my use cases."
"StarWind vSAN is a great solution to create a redundant two-node-only Hyper-V cluster, both for domain or workgroup scenarios."
"A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic."
"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 initial setup isn't hard."
"Sangfor HCI's best features are the ability to scale to a bigger size and the roadmap, whereby if they need to replicate their production to disaster recovery, they can do so on the same platform."
"The solution provides a single management console."
"I would rate the user-friendliness an eight out of ten."
"It is a smart solution for virtualization"
"Sangfor HCI is a one-stop solution that enables you to store and centrally manage your VMs."
"I am impressed with the product's firewall and virtualization."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten... Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It is very well known in the industry, and there are a lot of technical resources around it. This is a big thing for me because, at the end of the day, when you implement it, you need to support it."
"It is easy to find information out there, not only from searching the web, but even the times I have engaged VMware support."
"The ability to have a disaster recovery option for our end-users by being able to use VDI and the vSANs, and the ability to do replication across multiple data centers, are valuable to us."
"The most valuable features for us are the ability to scale out the nodes independently, and the flexibility of the nodes. We can put almost any type of server in there with our connectivity and everything works great."
"Very good VCG notification feature."
"The high availability is very good."
"VMware vSAN is a global solution, so we can manage all the storage solutions in one place. It's embedded in VCI solutions."
"I like vSAN because they release features incrementally, every year, and you don't have to upgrade your hardware to get those features. If you bought a traditional SAN, you would have to upgrade your hardware constantly, every three years: You would get it, and it is how it is for three years. But on vSAN, you upgrade when you have to, when your hardware gets old or when you need more capacity. It's great, you get new features constantly."
"We don't really have any issues with this product."
"The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved."
"The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation."
"It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."
"I think the setup could be streamlined a bit."
"Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
"In the next release, they could make some graphs of the real-time loading, speed of storage, and interfaces. Of course, these can be viewed in other places. But, in the event of a malfunction or troubleshooting, this would be convenient."
"Proper training sessions should be included with the licensing."
"The initialization is not fully automated and has room for improvement."
"As far as I know, no hyper-convergence solution includes security, so you have to buy security from another brand. For example, you buy SimpliVity or Nutanix. They don't really have a security solution inside the product. It would be good if there is a security solution inside this solution so that it is not only for the virtualization of CPU, RAM, disk, and network but also for security."
"Currently, when we need to do capacity planning, we have to rely on Sangfor's support team for assistance. However, if there were dedicated tools available, we could handle it ourselves and increase efficiency."
"The interface could be a little bit better."
"Sangfor could improve its built-in CAP system. Right now, we need to use an external tool for CAP."
"We have had issues while integrating VMware with Sangfor HCI. The tool should be also faster in terms of customization."
"It should have object storage. It already has network virtualization and micro-segmentation, but it is missing object storage. It does not have object storage. vSAN also does not have object storage, but Nutanix has object storage, and it is natively integrated into its HCI. So, if you pay for the object storage license, you have that module pre-built."
"Sangfor HCI has room for improvement in terms of integration. So, the integration with Sangfor HCI is not as extensive as in Nutanix."
"The big thing is pricing, and the rest of it is mostly good. From a scalability point of view, scaling the storage from network or compute should be easier. It is again all around the cost, and it would be good if it was easier to scale your storage separately from your compute."
"The only thing that can be improved is the cost."
"I would like to see some of the more traditional SAN functions that are out the now. I can list them: being able to Snapshot on the back-end, better de-dupe, and better compression. Those are the major ones."
"This product is very expensive."
"Hardware load balancing is available on the enterprise version of the solution, however, it's extremely expensive and therefore out of our budget."
"The integration could be improved. I would like to see integration with other platforms."
"The quality of the customer service and support depends on the vSAN case. For example, if I open ten cases, maybe two or three get resolved quickly. But the other cases have a slow response."
"The UI falls short compared to other solutions. It needs some development to make it more user-friendly."
More Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Pricing and Cost Advice →
Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is ranked 9th in HCI with 28 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 227 reviews. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is rated 8.0, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure writes "The solution offers straightforward setup, scalability, and manageability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, HPE Hyper Converged and StorMagic SvSAN, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Pure Storage FlashArray. See our Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs. VMware vSAN report.
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