Dell PowerFlex vs Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes comparison

Dell PowerFlex and Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes are both solutions in the HCI category. Dell PowerFlex is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.5, while Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is ranked #21. Dell PowerFlex holds a 12.6% mindshare in HCI, compared to Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell PowerFlex users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Dell PowerFlex and Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes are competing products in flexible storage and computing solutions. Dell PowerFlex seems to have the upper hand with its integration capabilities and scalability, adapting well to complex environments, while VxFlex Ready Nodes appeal to those with specific high-demand applications.

Features: Dell PowerFlex showcases scalability and seamless integration, supporting diverse hardware and software configurations. It adapts well to existing IT infrastructures and offers advanced performance tuning. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes provide powerful performance and reliability, ideal for intensive workloads and frequent data transactions, emphasizing reliability and support for demanding environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes feature a straightforward deployment model focused on a plug-and-play approach, which minimizes complexity and setup time. Their customer service is known for strong support. Dell PowerFlex has a more complex deployment process due to its broader integration capabilities, but its customer service is robust, offering comprehensive assistance during the deployment process.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerFlex presents a higher initial setup cost but offers strong ROI with its scalability and adaptability, favoring long-term growth. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes have lower initial costs, delivering a faster ROI through immediate performance and reliability improvements, offering a cost-effective solution for immediate needs compared to the long-term benefits of PowerFlex.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerFlex vs. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex vs. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 12.6%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Hosni

Senior System Engineer at Giza Systems

Feb 24, 2024

Provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor

You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost-effective point. Having used Starwind Virtual SAN for many years both for clients and for internal systems, it has always done exactly what it set out to do. It provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor, but it is most effective with Hyper-V. It's simple and easy to use, The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation.

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Ayodeji Oyewole

Managing Director at Atlantic factorial

Aug 12, 2024

A hyper-converged infrastructure that is like a mini data center of its own

Dell PowerFlex is used for on-prem cloud solutions. It's a hyper-converged infrastructure, which means you can integrate it directly into your core network. You get all the computing and storage you need without bothering much about the network connection between the servers because all that comes…

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Al Vasek

Executive Business Development Manager, Cloud and Managed Services at ConvergeOne

Apr 29, 2022

Ease of acquisition, simple deployment, and priced well

The support from Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is okay. It could be better, they have to work on their approach. The approach they have I call "pass the baton". Every manufacturer does this, such as Cisco, Dell, and Microsoft. You call in, receive a call handler, and give them your problem. The first person you talk to can never fix your problem. They just collect information. There's probably a 5 percent chance that they could fix your problem. Then they pass it off to the next person, there is a lot of passing. That's why I call it "pass the baton". The company I work for the maintenance services is at 98 percent, we receive over 50,000 incidents a month, for those customers who have support through Dell, Cisco, or someone else, 98 percent of our incidents or ticket requests get resolved by your first point of contact. We try to take out that frustration. Knowing that it's possible to fix that model. I don't think it saves them much money, because they're tying up too many resources where if they could route those incidents to the person that could fix them the first time, it would just save a lot of frustration on the customer's behalf. It would make everything a lot more efficient, and a better overall customer support image. It is a bad model that many vendors use.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It also provides a high degree of mobility, as the virtual SAN can be moved relatively painlessly between on-site devices and the cloud."

"The user interface for this application is amazing."

"Besides being 80% cheaper than the other alternatives, the simplicity makes reconfiguration and support much easier."

"StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere is a software-defined storage solution that has reduced administration time for storage. It's pretty straightforward to install and setup it and so far it has been robust and worked as advertised from StarWind."

"Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."

"It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly."

"The install itself is easy as pie."

"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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."

"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."

"The solution is scalable."

"The solution is quite stable."

"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."

"The setup was very straightforward."

"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."

"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"The most valuable features of Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes are the ease of acquisition."

"Dell EMC VxFlex Ready Nodes can support what we call a heterogeneous environment. So you can have VMware workloads, Hyper-V workloads, bare metal Red Hat workloads, Kubernetes workloads all on the same cluster. You're not pigeonholed into either all bare metal or all virtualized. So it supports basically any platform."

Cons

"The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own."

"The documentation could be clearer in terms of explaining the installation."

"An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration."

"I want to suggest that the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure needs to be reduced."

"Ability to to test the virtual storage are network area and storage speed from StarWind Management Console."

"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."

"It would be great if the Linux version of the management console offered the same features as Windows."

"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

"We are still hoping for better ways to incorporate AI. We have to extend third-party access to PowerFlex by calling the API. It would be easier if the product had built-in AI integration. If PowerFlex can contribute more to AI, it would be more useful."

"Needs some more monitoring tools."

"There should be more functionality available for routing."

"We've had some issues around the licensing."

"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."

"The solution must be more flexible."

"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."

"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"From a technical perspective, it's a pretty rock solid solution. I would say the only area for improvement is around its price."

"Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is a little less sophisticated than some of the other solutions out there. A full-blown cloud foundation has a lot more to it."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."

"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."

"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."

"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."

"The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."

"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."

"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."

"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."

"The price could be improved."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is a cheaper solution than Nutanix and HyperFlex."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

13%

Retailer

10%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?

It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

If you are comfortable with the solution and you feel that you don't need support, you can begin with the free licenc...

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What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limite...

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What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not bein...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerFlex?

The support is highly responsive.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?

If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive.

See all answers

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Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 5% of the time

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VxRail vs Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

Compared 73% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

Compared 13% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

October 2024

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

November 2024

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

HCI

November 2024

Download Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

VxFlex Ready Nodes

Learn More

StarWind

Dell Technologies

Overview

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

VxRack System consists of hyper-converged rack-scale engineered systems, with integrated networking, to achieve the scalability and management requirements of traditional and cloud native workloads. The VxRack series is purposely designed to enable customers to quickly deploy Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and/or Private Cloud architectures. VxRack Systems tightly integrate hardware with software and management layers.

The result is a fully tested, pre-configured, hyper-converged system with simplified operations at data center and Service Provider scale. VxRack Systems support the deployment of a variety of application workloads, allowing IT to rapidly deliver new services while improving overall agility and efficiency.

VxRack FLEX and VxFlex Ready Nodes, also known as the Flex family, create a server-based SAN by combining virtualization software, known as VxFlex OS, with Dell EMC PowerEdge servers to deliver flexibility, scalability, and capacity on demand. Local storage resources are combined to create a virtual pool of block storage with varying performance tiers. The platform enables you to start small (with as little as four nodes) and scale incrementally. The Flex family provides enterprise-grade data protection, multi-tenant capabilities, and add-on enterprise features such as QoS, thin provisioning, and snapshots. VxFlex OS is the key enabler and provides an unmatched combination of performance, resiliency and flexibility to address enterprise data center needs. The unique features of VxFlex OS make it an excellent complement to Kubernetes for stateful applications, such as databases, continuous integration, logging and monitoring platforms.

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox

Boys Town

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex vs. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

October 2024

Free Report: Dell PowerFlex vs. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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