Dell PowerFlex vs HPE StoreVirtual comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 12.6% mindshare in the category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #17 in SDS , and holds a 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and HPE StoreVirtual based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: November 2024).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

November 2024

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Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN

Mindshare comparison

HCI

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

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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Vebjorn Nergaard

Senior IT Engineer at Guard Automation AS

Feb 9, 2020

Stable, scalable, and easy to manage

The solution is deployed with two nodes and then users have a network ride. The storage solution synchronizes, and it's quite like the StarWind solution. We installed two storage virtual machines and they synchronize with each other. That way, if one goes down, the other one will have the same…

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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 license price is one of the cheapest in the market."

"I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN."

"The vSAN provides full redundancy for storage while reclaiming some rack space."

"The primary purpose of this software is to create a virtual SAN between local storage on Hyper-V hosts. I find this feature most valuable since it accomplishes this quite well."

"Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working."

"One of the standout features of StarWind.com is its remarkable ability to seamlessly integrate with Dell systems. This integration provides users with an unmatched level of convenience and compatibility, allowing for streamlined operations within a Dell environment. This compatibility factor alone can save significant time and effort for IT professionals, ensuring a smooth integration process and optimized performance."

"The top-notch support before, during, and after deployments are better than any other vendor I have come across."

"Their support staff is comprised of true experts who can also communicate clearly."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."

"The setup was very straightforward."

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

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

"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."

"The support team responds quickly."

"The solution is scalable."

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

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"The network RAID feature gives us maximum availability, since we cannot afford any downtime, even for a second."

"A very flexible solution."

"The solution is quite stable. We haven't had any issues with glitches or bugs."

"I guess on the top of the list is certainly ease of use."

"StoreVirtual is that it is our software-defined solution and it's everywhere."

"The solution is very stable."

"It's very stable and it's easy to use."

"All of the administrative tasks are easy and everything is centralized."

More HPE StoreVirtual pros

Cons

"Pricing is a bit high."

"I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things."

"If there was one feature I would like to see it would be a built-in subsystem for managing UPS backups shutdown procedures providing a way to initiate VM shutdown on all host servers, shut down the host servers, then put the fault-tolerant mirroring in standby, and finally shut down the StarWind SANs."

"In the next release, they could make some graphs of the real-time loading, speed of storage, and interfaces. Of course, these can be viewed in other places. But, in the event of a malfunction or troubleshooting, this would be convenient."

"It should reclaim white spaces after big files are deleted."

"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."

"To enable the proactive support capability that is part of our support agreement, I would ask that the terms and conditions be revised and made acceptable to corporate security."

"There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

"We're also running Hyper-V virtual machines. But we recently discovered that migration of the Hyper-V virtual machines is a bit challenging. Maybe if Dell EMC can come out with a tool that will make it very easy for us to migrate the Microsoft Hyper-V machine, that may be an improvement."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."

"The solution must be more flexible."

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

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

"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."

"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."

"They should provide continuous support for data migration."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"f you're doing the 10Gb adapters, SFPs don't come with it, but it doesn't say that. It might say that somewhere else, but it's not clear."

"The management aspect of the solution needs to be improved in order to make the product stronger."

"Configuration of application integrated snapshots for VMware is convoluted and it did not work immediately."

"The initial setup could be simplified to make it easier for new users."

"it would nice to have deduplication or compression, things that you have in some of the higher end products."

"It would be nice if there were more parts available in Brazil and HPE could swap out faulty equipment quicker."

"The solution needs to ensure it is on par with the industry in terms of availability of features and various other options."

"The product is coming to end-of-life in the next three years."

More HPE StoreVirtual cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."

"The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."

"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."

"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."

"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."

"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"The prices are OK, so we don't have much difficulty selling HPE in Brazil."

"For our organization, I believe the cost is 16,000 Euros for a three-year license. It costs a bit more to do the maintenance on our servers as well. It's also on an HP ProLiant server and an organization will need to do the maintenance there also. I believe the price for that is around 2000 Euros a year."

"If you buy a five-year license, not only does the technical support expire after five years, but you also lose the ability to change and expand the VSA, and the systems won't go down."

"It costs less than $10,000 for one machine. If it costs more than 15% higher than this, then the customer may change to another solution."

"Licensing is not exactly straightforward, but not the worst I have ever seen."

"One of the key features about it is that when you buy either a VSA license or a StoreVirtual appliance, all your software's included."

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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

23%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

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...

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

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

See all answers

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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Compared 37% of the time

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Compared 28% 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

HPE StoreVirtual

October 2024

Download HPE StoreVirtual product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

HPE StoreVirtual, HPE VSA

Learn More

StarWind

Dell Technologies

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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.

HPE StoreVirtual storage ensures that organisations can optimise the benefits of server virtualisation with cost-effective high availability and disaster recovery. The iSCSI-based, scale-out storage platform is easy to manage and change – meeting ongoing business demands without creating IT bottlenecks or application downtime. Overcoming the cost and management limitations of traditional storage area networks (SANs), HPE StoreVirtual nodes use storage clustering to form a single pool of resources that enable organisations to buy only what they need today, scaling non-disruptively to meet requirements in the future.

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

NBrIX, WIND Telecom, Netrics

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: November 2024.

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