We performed a comparison between Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series and VxRail 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 customer support provided by StarWind is excellent."
"It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” accessible by all hosts. StarWind cuts down virtualization cost and complexity by eliminating the need for a physical shared storage (SAN). -StarWind offers the Enterprise-level high availability (HA), deployed and easily configured . we get technical support from star wind team when implementation software and after setup if we face any issue."
"We test live failovers every week, and so far, everything has been running smoothly without anything unexpected."
"StarWind vSAN has a lot of great features and is a perfect solution for mirroring internal disks and flash between servers."
"The most valuable feature for us is having the ability to configure our local storage using a limited number of disks and using the StarWind VSAN software to keep the cluster nodes in perfect sync."
"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"In the three years that we have been using StarWind, the product has yet to cause us any problems."
"The configuration is so much simpler than that of a traditional SAN with fewer points of failure to worry about."
"In our implementations, HDS Storage Virtualization has helped in migrating data with the least amount of downtime, compared to other storage technologies."
"This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place."
"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."
"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 compute is good and we have not had any issues with the vSAN."
"Our clients value being able to upgrade with one click or a few clicks."
"Low-maintenance solution with hyperscale feature so it has the ability to utilize the resources for the VMware cluster setup on which Citrix VDA runs."
"The manageability for controlling the console is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is its high performance."
"The most compelling aspect of VxRail lies in its unwavering guarantee of sustained performance for my systems, regardless of their geographical distribution."
"It improved from an operations standpoint as we have reduced failures compared to a previous vendor. The hardware that we previously used had a lot of issues with components failing regularly."
"The cluster configuration is time-consuming and tedious."
"We would like to see the documentation more fully developed."
"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."
"I want to suggest that the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure needs to be reduced."
"This product would benefit from having automated alerting functionality."
"The console is something that I believe could be enhanced."
"I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal."
"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"You have to buy a new server if you want to scale up."
"What I did not like so much was the amount of VMware that you have to put in your system related to the VxRail."
"If they can provide deduplication compression through the traditional hard drives, as Cisco does in the HyperFlex system, it will be very cost-effective, especially when it comes to archiving workload. VxRail doesn't allow the mixing of old flash clusters and hyper clusters. When I'm starting with an old flash cluster and it comes to archiving workload, I will also need to attend the new cluster. So, I either manage two different clusters, or I pay and upload my work with the archiving mobile hard drive, which is not cost-effective at all. The main key is to allow mixing between two types of clustering, like Nutanix, or allow deduplication of completion over the period of shared hard drive on SAV. It will be much better."
"The initial setup is very complex."
"They need to keep upgrading the environment and improving automation so that the solution keeps getting better and better."
"The solution should facilitate the separate expansion of computing and storage."
"If VxRail could also offer file services in addition to virtualization, that would be nice because sometimes people want to complement their environment with file services, and you don't have that in VxRail."
"A disadvantage is that the initial first deployment can be complicated."
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. See our Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series vs. VxRail report.
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