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Dell PowerFlex vs HPE SimpliVity comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
189
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
Dell PowerFlex
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE SimpliVity
Ranking in HCI
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 HPE SimpliVity is 9.7%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Hosni - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ayodeji  Oyewole - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Xavier Perez - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 3, 2024
Has a deployment phase that is straightforward but needs improvement in the area of scalability
The main issue with HPE SimpliVity is that you are very attached to VMware or VMware dependencies because the tool works with VMware technology. HPE SimpliVity is an add-on from VMware. Nowadays, my company has a lot of concerns about VMware's licensing policy. Another big concern of the tool is related to security because one has to continuously update patch vulnerabilities that are appearing continuously in VMware's different versions. Actually, the foundation of all the architecture is VMware and that is one of the main issues with the tool. My company is analyzing our virtual infrastructure strategy to see if we can move to Nutanix because maybe it may work better and might have another approach. Nutanix is absolutely independent of VMware. I could add that since HPE SimpliVity is very precisely dependent on VMware, it is not open to containers unlike Nutanix, for example. The aforementioned area is a concern that needs to be resolved by HPE.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has improved our organization in terms of its uptime as our main cluster has never been offline due to a SAN failure."
"The solution is also quite flexible. As an example, other vSAN solutions that we looked at had more stringent requirements regarding mixed HDD/SSD storage which wouldn't have worked in our environment."
"The most important feature is the ability to experience the loss of one node or one storage device, and not lose the entire cluster."
"Given the high availability of the server cluster, we were able to reduce separate physical servers onto one hyper-converged cluster - this saved in OPEX and CAPEX costs immediately, along with licensing costs of the Windows Server licenses."
"It's quite easy to manage."
"It allows you to use ANY consumer or enterprise HDDs and SSDs, and that's a really great thing!"
"Ten gigabit Ethernet compatibility, support, ease of use, and management are some positive features."
"StarWind allowed us to deploy highly available shared storage within our budget."
"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."
"The setup was very straightforward."
"Dell PowerFlex improves our latency which allowed us to reduce a lot of our Microsoft Enterprise SQL licenses."
"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The support is highly responsive."
"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."
"It has reduced downtime. Before, on our previous solution, we used to have downtime on some of the servers because of the sort of convention. But currently I've not experienced any downtime on any of the servers, and there is no more resource congestion."
"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."
"It's much more simple than Nutanix and other hyper-converged solutions, at least from our point of view."
"It comes all in one box."
"​My impression is that it is a very nice solution. Very simple to use."
"The initial setup is simple."
"It doesn't take long to mount the entire VM somewhere and then copy it. That's one of the things that I like about SimpliVity's deduplication and compression. I can literally stand up a backup in minutes. It is like no time at all. They've got pretty phenomenal deduplication and compression. Within SimpliVity, one of the things that they do is deduplication and compression on ingestion. So, on the front side, everything is deduplicated and compressed, which, of course, adds some overhead to their solution. For instance, in my environment today, I've got roughly 30 terabytes of raw storage, and with their deduplication and compression, I'm over the 300 terabyte threshold with my active servers and all my backups."
"The simple management comes in handy since a standard VMware admin can manage it."
"The solution is scalable and one of the best in the market."
"It is just a one-stop shop, a single appliance that I can control through my virtual center."
 

Cons

"The software could benefit from more tooling to help with initial deployment."
"There should be publicly available tutorials on YouTube or other platforms that help the users to integrate this solution with other platforms, for example."
"They require more media visibility."
"Scaling the product is fairly easy except for the computing aspect. It would entail another appliance. While not a show stopper, it isn't as easy as dropping in a few extra SSDs."
"I would say that the documentation is mostly great, however, some features could be expanded upon a bit."
"There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
"StarWind Command Center's single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V."
"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."
"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."
"Needs some more monitoring tools."
"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"The solution must be more flexible."
"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"There should be more functionality available for routing."
"There needs to be a simple process for migrating one SimpliVity cluster to a new SimpliVity cluster."
"I can say that the support was better when it was a separate company, when it was SimpliVity. But, now with HPE it has not been quite as good. B"
"HPE SimpliVity could be more flexible and scalable. I don't feel SimpliVity is flexible or easily scalable because I still need to buy another server to add to my clusters. I can't just run or harvest and add to my solution. I need to buy another server. There are a lot of components that are not giving a lot of value to me right now. I also had a few problems with the built-in hard disk drives. I've had many issues with the harvest stripes that the servers use. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's unusual to have a physical failure on the HPE platform. I don't see any value at the software level, especially in the software that manages that solution. I was waiting for something, especially in the application layer that I would use, but that is all over VMware, and it doesn't have an integrated module that I can use to manage the server and all the instances."
"The initial setup is not that easy."
"I would like them to add more connection capability, a hub and spoke model, to improve the number of connections that it can handle."
"It's a very complex installation. It's gotten easier, however, it's far from a double click on a link and a self-upgrade scenario. There's still an awful lot of magic that goes down to doing upgrades."
"We have had some failures out-of-the-box. We have had some failures with the OmniStack module. One thing that we didn't fully understand was how much of the internal memory was used up by the OmniStack piece, which basically makes up SimpliVity."
"Its deployment should be easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."
"The pricing is more than reasonable."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
"We are happy with the price."
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."
"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."
"The solution's price is medium."
"The product is expensive."
"There is a one-time purchase needed for the license for HPE SimpliVity. The solution is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"We're paying $3,000-$4,000 a month."
"One big advantage with SimpliVity is that you don't need the higher license cost or VMware to put together a simple SimpliVity solution."
"The licensing cost could be lower."
"There are additional costs for storage."
"HPE SimpliVity is much more affordable than Nutanix or VMware vSAN...The first pair of servers was about 90,000 EUR, including three years of warranty. It is 30,000 EUR per year."
"Scaling isn't cheap"
"Its licensing is quite easy. There is a model license, but it depends on the system you buy. There are no extra costs. There is only one license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limite...
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...
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.
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 resea...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
The price is almost equal to VMware vSAN, making it not much cost saving. However, the time-saving during upgrades is...
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
 

Overview

 

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
Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. HPE SimpliVity and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.