Dell PowerFlex vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series comparison

Dell Technologies and Hitachi Vantara are both solutions in the HCI category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.5, while Hitachi Vantara is ranked #22. Dell Technologies holds a 12.6% mindshare in HCI, compared to Hitachi Vantara’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Hitachi Vantara users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Dell PowerFlex and Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series are competitive solutions in the hyper-converged infrastructure market. Dell PowerFlex seems to have the upper hand with its scalability and flexibility, appealing to enterprises needing adaptable storage solutions, while Hitachi is preferred for its system resilience and performance, beneficial for reliability-focused buyers.

Features: Dell PowerFlex offers integrated data protection, automation, and multi-cloud deployment capabilities. Its architecture allows for easy scaling. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series features strong security protocols, real-time analytics, and compatibility with existing systems.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerFlex's deployment model is streamlined with automation tools, simplifying integration. Its customer service is responsive and aids in setup. Hitachi benefits from detailed guides and a structured rollout approach, with customer support ensuring smooth transitions.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerFlex involves an upfront cost aligned with its feature set, promising high ROI through operational efficiencies. Hitachi may require a higher initial investment, but its performance reliability contributes to notable ROI over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerFlex vs. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex vs. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

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 Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series is 0.6%, up from 0.6% 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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Austin Ajaegbu

Enterprise Information systems/Wintel Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 24, 2021

Allows for centralized management with great interconnectivity

My main use is server management and virtualization This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place. The most valuable feature is the interconnectivity, which allows me to use the system across my data centers and makes it easy…

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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

"The product creates opportunities with hybrid on-premise solutions."

"StarWind vSAN is easy to deploy and administer."

"The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy."

"I save both physical and virtual space."

"The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."

"The StarWind Virtual SAN provides a clever and unique solution to the Computing Split Brain problem."

"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."

"The ProActive support gives me peace of mind because I am a one man shop, but with the technical support behind me, I feel like more than just one person. We spent two to three hours, depending on what we have to do, always on the phone, and they do not push to end the call."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"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."

"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. The most important aspects are ease of management, as well as ease of configuration, allowing them to attach additional nodes and resources for the applications."

"The most valuable feature is the overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."

"The setup was very straightforward."

"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."

"The most valuable feature is high availability."

"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."

"The solution is scalable."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"This solution allowed us to move from using standalone systems to having all our data center management in one place."

"In our implementations, HDS Storage Virtualization has helped in migrating data with the least amount of downtime, compared to other storage technologies."

"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."

Cons

"There is no IPv6 support. That is our only issue at this time."

"It would be great to have more automated tooling around managing the iSCSI connections in Windows"

"Some configuration options still demand service restarting."

"Having more support plan options would be nice."

"I wish there was online support because email return takes a long time and a faster solution should be found."

"Including their own hyper-visor would be a valuable improvement over simply integrating with Hyper-V."

"Proper training sessions should be included with the licensing."

"When StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere nodes go offline unexpectedly, the nodes have to re-sync disks fully which takes a long time. We had a power failure and when both nodes came online, VMware vSphere didn't see StarWind disks before I manually re-scanned them form ESXi administration console even though it should happen automatically"

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

"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 initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."

"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."

"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."

"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."

"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."

"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."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"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."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."

"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."

"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."

"StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."

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

"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

"The pricing for this solution is good."

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

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

"The cost of this solution is fair."

"The product is expensive."

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

"The price could be improved."

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

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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

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 28% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 6% of the time

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VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 50% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 15% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 6% of the time

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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Compared 44% of the time

VxRail vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Compared 13% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Compared 12% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

October 2024

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Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

November 2024

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Buyer's Guide

HCI

November 2024

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series report

Download Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

HDS Unified Compute Platform, Hitachi UCP, Hitachi UCP Select

Learn More

StarWind

Dell Technologies

Hitachi Vantara

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.

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) is the company's product for converged infrastructure (CI), combining resources server, storage, networking, virtualization, and software management.

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

Asia Capital Reinsurance, RMZ, Cigniti Technologies, SPAR, Infosys

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex vs. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

October 2024

Free Report: Dell PowerFlex vs. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC Series and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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