We performed a comparison between HPE SimpliVity and VxRail based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, VxRail seems to be the superior solution. Our reviewers found HPE SimpliVity to be more difficult to deploy and more expensive to purchase than VxRail.
"It's quite easy to manage."
"The software is easy to setup and manage, and the support is excellent."
"The support team is available to solve any problem efficiently."
"Their support goes above and beyond with the integration of their software."
"For those basic uses, it's simple to set up and manage, and it seems to do a fine job."
"Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
"Virtualizing data infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN improves efficiency and reduces operational costs."
"Updates to server hardware are now painless and done during working hours with zero stress. We had a RAID failure a few months back, and nobody in the building even noticed and there was no after hours time used for repair."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"Backups happen very quickly."
"Its ease of use is valuable. It is being used in a mining company. They wanted their working nodes to be seamless, and they wanted ease of use. That's why they opted for SimpliVity. They are running VMware virtual machines on it."
"We like the backup feature, which is inbuilt."
"It is simple and easy to use."
"We can get backups faster. We have a smaller footprint for hardware, which takes up less space. So, we use less electricity and floor space."
"The ease of managing this system."
"The backup feature is valuable, and replication is also valuable. It is very quick and easy to use."
"I would recommend VxRail, it works for most of the use cases."
"Initial setup is straightforward, as everything is pre-installed."
"It helps simplify the management of VMware."
"The recent technologies and management features that have been implemented."
"The most valuable feature for me in this latest release has been the ability to add a compute or storage node. In the previous release, if I wanted to add only the compute mode, I need to buy a full node, including both compute and storage. That is no longer the case; I can upgrade whatever I want one based on my demand."
"It is scalable. When you are buying it, you have to buy a minimum of three nodes. After that, if you want to add more nodes, you can buy can buy them. You can also add-on additional compute and storage."
"VxRail does not require fiber switches or external storage. It's easy to replace and manage. It's centralized management through VxRail Manager."
"I like that there is a dependency on the storage controller."
"I'd love to see native export of metrics (via Prometheus or something of that nature) to allow us to get more metrics available on our existing dashboard software."
"The logs can also become very noisy when there is an issue, which is very infrequent."
"You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue."
"Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet."
"Some configuration options still demand service restarting."
"It would be helpful if StarWind provided more precise and detailed documentation explaining how to configure the solution in various scenarios, including the advantages and disadvantages of each."
"It would be helpful to have a little more insight into what kind of performance the VSAN cluster is utilizing; something that would be more proactive on our side, versus their ProActive Support."
"We have, in rare cases, received conflicting guidance between different support folks within StarWind."
"The biggest feature, which should be included, is some method to handle archival backup or cloud-based backup. Where SimpliVIty typically falls down with their data structure is: The longer a backup is kept, the more space it ends up inevitably using. When you get into things that you have to keep for five or seven years for legal requirements or regulatory compliance, then you start taking up a lot of space with these old dead backups that you are probably never going to use again. Being able to offload those to a separate platform or cloud storage location would be ideal."
"The initial setup was complex because it was a new solution."
"There are a lot of different components to choose from in the chassis. This could be easier by providing a standard or a base model to create and configure from."
"I would like some reporting about backup and replication."
"The backup and recovery process needs to be faster. Right now, it's a bit slow."
"Simplify the backup and restore: With integrated backup and remote replication, it could reduce risk and eliminates the use of legacy data tools."
"SimpliVity has little to no integrations."
"The Omni Card consumes a lot of memory and CPU."
"They should add automation and activation going forward."
"I would like to see Dell take a crack at simplifying the process of moving from a node to a cluster and assembling everything into the appliance. It would be great if Dell could provide a pathway where a customer could actually install it without the certifications. Of course, I can't say how you would dumb down something so complex."
"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."
"It needs faster deployment of security patches."
"The implementation of a VxRail, it's straightforward, but the ongoing utilization, and integration, are where it can start to become difficult if you're not used to doing it."
"It would be nice if its installation can be simplified, but it is currently not too bad. They can provide deduplication and compression in hybrid configurations. To the best of my knowledge, these features are not there, and it would be nice if these are added. Some of its competitors already have these features, so it will help VxRail to have a better feature set and compete more effectively."
"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."
"Deployment was not initially straightforward for us. We had an incompatibility issue that was very difficult for Dell Professional Service to solve."
HPE SimpliVity is ranked 5th in HCI with 151 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 121 reviews. HPE SimpliVity is rated 8.6, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of HPE SimpliVity writes "Provides a unified management interface that allows administrators to manage all aspects of the infrastructure". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". HPE SimpliVity is most compared with VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Alletra dHCI, Dell PowerFlex and Scale Computing HC3, whereas VxRail is most compared with Dell PowerFlex, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Hyper Converged and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. See our HPE SimpliVity vs. VxRail report.
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Hi, Refer to your questions if you are a COO of a small company then both solutions would be costly as a minimum of 3 nodes solution is required. Both are good at their places. Let's say, VxRail is deeply engineered with VMware and they have strong integration and performance testing results. in terms of expansion, federation, compression/deduplication, etc., is much more improved. Whereas HPE SimpliVity used its own storage virtualization software and backup software. Whereas in VxRail you can also use any backup software. Apart from the discussion, my suggestion would be to go with simple X86 Servers(any OEM) with Sangfor( they have built-in administrative software (i.e. VCenter), built-in backup (no need to buy any other software), multi-hypervisor support, cost-effective even if you plan to provide SaaS service you can easily do it from your company immediately. They also provide vNGFW, vADC, vIAM, etc. It is an end-to-end HCI Solution with Security support included. Prices are very reasonable(I don't know your region). Thanks