We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure 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 most valuable feature of this solution is the support. They are excellent and you can learn a lot from the support team."
"Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us."
"For those basic uses, it's simple to set up and manage, and it seems to do a fine job."
"It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable."
"The product creates opportunities with hybrid on-premise solutions."
"StarWind SANs come with outstanding support."
"It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product."
"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 solution is quite stable."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The support team responds quickly."
"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"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."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The support is highly responsive."
"The most valuable feature is the three nodes and the free hypervisor."
"I find the simplicity of Sangfor very valuable. It is easy to configure and user-friendly. The overall user experience as well as the usability of Sangfor is outstanding."
"You can get almost all the features of the tool at a low cost. The tool also has built-in backup mechanisms. It also has a physical firewall for internet management which other competitors lack."
"The most valuable feature of Sangfor HCI is the built-in recovery functionality. The migration is simple to do from other solutions, such as VMware."
"Their GUI interface is a bit easier than VMware's."
"The product provides a single management console for managing everything."
"I am impressed with the product's firewall and virtualization."
"Sangfor is user-friendly and simple to upgrade."
"I'm sure it needs bug fixes..."
"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."
"The number of different ways you can set it up can make it a little daunting."
"In all areas the product could be made faster."
"The Command Center, a free guest VM for management and monitoring, leaves something to be desired. It could have more accurate real-time information and better reporting visuals, which seem to be an afterthought."
"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 would like to see different levels of support offered."
"For improvement, I would like to see how the software determines which networks to use for which purpose. It seems like the naming terminology changes a bit from here to there."
"Needs some more monitoring tools."
"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"The support of containers needs to be improved. At present, it is limited to VMware. There needs to be direct communication with the hardware rather than through a hypervisor."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"We have had issues while integrating VMware with Sangfor HCI. The tool should be also faster in terms of customization."
"Sangfor HCI could be improved with certification and the right ecosystem for ISVs like Oracle and SAP."
"The error reporting needs to be improved."
"The solution could improve by including backup capabilities."
"One question that has come up frequently in the last week is whether or not the renewal cost for Sangfor's HCI solution is too high."
"Lacks network support."
"The cost must be improved."
"Support may be an issue for customers in some industries. For example, financial institutions may require 24/7 support."
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Dell PowerFlex is ranked 8th in HCI with 19 reviews while Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is ranked 9th in HCI with 28 reviews. Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.2, while Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is rated 8.0. 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 Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure writes "The solution offers straightforward setup, scalability, and manageability". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE SimpliVity and HPE Alletra dHCI, whereas Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is most compared with VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VxRail, HPE SimpliVity and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Dell PowerFlex vs. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure report.
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