DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware vSAN comparison

DataCore and VMware are both solutions in the HCI category. DataCore is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.5, while VMware is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8. DataCore holds a 2.0% mindshare in HCI, compared to VMware’s 16.4% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of VMware users who would recommend it.

DataCore SANsymphony

Read 55 DataCore SANsymphony reviews

2,381 Views
1,292 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

VMware vSAN

Read 229 VMware vSAN reviews

18,927 Views
13,554 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

DataCore SANsymphony

VMware vSAN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

VMware vSAN and DataCore SANsymphony compete in the storage solutions category. VMware vSAN seems to have the upper hand due to its seamless integration within the VMware ecosystem, which is especially attractive to organizations heavily invested in VMware technologies.

Features: VMware vSAN is prized for its integration into the VMware ecosystem, offering scalability, rapid speed, and robust vMotion capabilities. DataCore SANsymphony is noted for its flexibility with diverse hardware, providing reliable redundancy, auto-tiering for performance, and storage virtualization across platforms.

Room for Improvement: VMware vSAN users desire enhanced data deduplication, better hardware compatibility, and more customization options. DataCore SANsymphony users seek a more user-friendly interface, improved integration with backup solutions like Veeam, and updates to licensing models and support services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware vSAN benefits from smooth integrations and robust technical support within VMware environments, though there are occasional delays in support responses. DataCore SANsymphony offers straightforward setup with some specialized configuration needed, while relying on channel partners for deployment, which varies based on partner expertise.

Pricing and ROI: VMware vSAN has higher initial costs but offers efficiency-driven TCO reductions over time within the VMware suite. DataCore SANsymphony is highlighted for its competitive licensing and flexibility in storage utilization, delivering a favorable price-to-performance ratio for maximizing existing hardware investments.

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. VMware vSAN Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. VMware vSAN

January 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

DataCore SANsymphony

Ranking in HCI

7th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), Storage Performance (1st)

VMware vSAN

Ranking in HCI

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

229

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 2.0%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 16.4%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

TempreviewerD

Architecte Principal at Orange

Robust with good replication and access protection

The solution is constantly evolving. Recently, deduplication and compression have been further improved to meet customer needs, and updates are easily implemented without stopping production. The update assistant checks the state of health before using good practices, during checks that the data is still presented for service continuity, and afterward, if the actions carried out are indeed active. Technical support is truly available even without a production incident. This is really essential right now.

Read full review

Lipaz Hessel

Integration Manager at Gilat Satellite Networks

Expensive solution that requires professional services for installation and implementation

I'm still using a different solution. I only took two servers with vSAN to support one application that needs one feature that only VMware has. If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware. Now, I'm looking at products like Nutanix, Silver Peak, Flexione, and FortiGate. For products that I choose, I don't need a specialist of that vendor. In VMware, I need a specialist in VMware. That's the issue I have with VMware. It's not like I can take any IT person, and they will know what to do. I need to make sure he will do the call, get the certificate and time to practice.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"I'd have to say that the biggest improvement gained by using SANsymphony has to be the performance of the product."

"The interface is user-friendly."

"SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions."

"The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware-vCenter."

"The platform's most valuable feature is its synchronous mirroring capability, which ensures bit-identical copies of data and offers excellent failover capacity."

"An advantage of SANsymphony is its ease of use, especially when installing or upgrading the system."

"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its versatility, with there being support for all new hardware technologies and platforms, disc mirroring and very effective auto tiering."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"This solution has a dashboard that you can log into and control if you need too while the VM is getting created."

"It scales well. We have plenty of room to grow."

"The most important thing is the simplicity of the product. It is a well-established product with good stability."

"If we decide to expand, vSAN could offer us some flexibility. We are researching ways to set this up from a new data center, which is located somewhere different from the current location right now."

"Technical support is very helpful and very good at resolving issues."

"it's easy to scale, it's easy to predict IOP needs, and you can design for low latency using all-flash... Also, for setting up new clusters for VDI quickly, it's nice. You don't have to wait on an order for a storage vendor to ship you a system and help you configure it, you do it all yourself. And the sizing guides are pretty straightforward."

"The high availability is very good."

"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."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."

"I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem."

"DataCore should integrate its own file server into SANsymphony."

"There is room for improvement in the graphical interface."

"I still see room for improvement with DataCore SANsymphony in the area of alarm and task management."

"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."

"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."

"I would like to see SMPA (Shared Multi-Port Array) technology developed with the aim of allowing a configuration identical to other storage arrays."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"It is a memory intensive app."

"I'd like to see better integration with the Update Manager, with respect to firmware updates for hardware."

"We want see a better monitoring tool in vSAN. Monitoring is not that great as of now because it shows us false alarms in the Health status. We would like that to be improved."

"he list of hardware supported should be increased in the future."

"They should make the software updates easier. We should be able to upgrade it more easily."

"Reporting currently depends on third party applications and that could be improved."

"The architecture of vSAN is not good. vSAN works with objects, such as disks, and it causes problems with availability."

"This is quite an expensive solution."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."

"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."

"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."

"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."

"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."

"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

"This solution requires the purchase of a license."

"Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective."

"Users may also start off with the demo version of the tool. After you learn to use the solution, you can buy it if it is beneficial."

"I feel the pricing to be reasonable."

"From a cost perspective, it is expensive. From a usability perspective, it reduces the overhead costs attached to its users' servers."

"With the new pricing model, it's expensive for the customer."

"We pay a yearly licensing fee."

"The product's price is not high. The tool is available at a normal price."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

22%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

52%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?

I rate the pricing of this solution as an eight. It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers.

See all answers

What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?

The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).

See all answers

What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?

One area where the solution could improve is its software platform. Many customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the software running on Microsoft Windows. Although an attempt was made to dev...

See all answers

What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

See all answers

How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?

HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 14% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp ONTAP vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 8% of the time

More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware vSAN

Compared 15% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN

Compared 8% of the time

Rackspace OpenStack vs VMware vSAN

Compared 2% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

January 2025

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

December 2024

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN

vSAN

Learn More

DataCore

VMware

Overview

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.

VMware vSAN Features

VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Storage policy-based management (SPBM): VMware vSAN supports storage policy-based management for automated management of storage profiles.

Software-defined data-at-rest encryption: With this VMware vSAN feature, you can prevent unauthorized access of data at rest.

Multiple nodes: VMware vSAN provides clusters that can include as few as 2 nodes or as many as 64 nodes.

High security and availability: VMware vSAN offers stretched clusters, allowing more than one virtualization host server to be used in the same setup, promoting higher security as well as availability.

Deduplication: VMware vSAN’s deduplication compresses data to ensure efficient storage management and security.

HCI mesh updates: VMware vSAN clusters can share storage capacity with non-HCI Sphere clusters and can adopt HCI without having to scale computing resources and storage or replace existing servers.

Simplified file services: With VMware vSAN’s file services, backup of file shares is simplified. You can use APIs that allow backup and recovery software vendors to integrate with your VMware vSAN file services, which enables backup software to track new data and add scalability enhancements to files.

VMware vSAN Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO): VMware vSAN helps you reduce upfront costs for businesses because it can be easily deployed on inexpensive x86 servers. In addition, its highly scalable infrastructure and quick deployment also save organizations time and money, making it an efficient storage solution.

Good manageability: VMWare vSAN is easy to set up, manage, and provision, without sacrificing performance.

Scalability: VMware vSAN is agile and allows administrators to scale storage on demand, quickly, and efficiently via policies and rules.

Simplicity: VMWare vSAN is simple to configure since it is embedded in the vSphere hypervisor. Installing it using the vSphere Web Client can be done quickly.

Reduced risk: VMWare vSAN reduces the risk associated with digital transformations by utilizing existing tools, skill sets, and solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.

PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”

A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”

Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."

Sample Customers

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.

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Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. VMware vSAN

January 2025

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