We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The StarWind tech support is extremely helpful, especially during the initial setup."
"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"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."
"Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage."
"This solution has a very good user interface, with simple administration/management."
"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."
"Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."
"StarWind vSAN is a great solution to create a redundant two-node-only Hyper-V cluster, both for domain or workgroup scenarios."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"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 solution is quite stable."
"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."
"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."
"The support is highly responsive."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"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."
"Both the scalability and stability of this solution are excellent."
"The consolidation of the management in one control point is the most valuable. The whole infrastructure management is consolidated in just one console point. The documentation is also pretty good."
"I like that you can add other types of services."
"The size of the hardware is what we need because it is very good for small configurations."
"It is stable and scalable."
"The most useful feature is the solution's automation in terms of how we are able to spin up a certain workload in real-time when we are doing R&D."
"Besides not being able to use any filesystem, I do not have any additional cons."
"Ongoing improvements in read and write performance would help meet increasingly demanding workloads."
"In all areas the product could be made faster."
"A central management console may be nice to see all nodes."
"A web management interface would be good, especially for those coming from other solutions that have one."
"If there was one thing we could request, it would be the ability to shrink volumes. For example, we want to be able to decrease in the size of the volume."
"Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users."
"The software could benefit from more tooling to help with initial deployment."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."
"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."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"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."
"The installation is complex."
"We've had some issues around the licensing."
"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."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"This product is not so stable. Maybe it is just not mature enough in its development."
"The cloud deployment could be improved."
"It should be more user-friendly, in my opinion."
"The licensing policy needs to be improved. They have a licensing policy based on the number of CPU sockets. Nowadays what has happened is that the license they are trying to move is based on the number of CPU cores. With the advancement in technology there are now more cores in a single CPU. It's been very challenging in terms of managing the license around everything. Today we have a processor with 24 and 32 cores on the same physical CPU."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is very difficult to operate. You have to have a deep understanding of the technical details of the infrastructure to implement it. When you compare it with VMware, it is totally different because the graphical user interface is not that easy to understand. It is not intuitive. To use it, you have to read a lot of documentation and even understand what is going on behind the solution. It is not for someone who has a little bit of knowledge. Currently, it is too complex. I need something that is easy to implement. It should have a basic configuration as well as a complex configuration."
"The main issue is the initial investment. It is an expensive product, and it should be cheaper. It should also be easier to use and manage. The professional service for this solution is quite complex and expensive."
More Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure Pricing and Cost Advice →
Earn 20 points
Dell PowerFlex is ranked 8th in HCI with 20 reviews while Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is ranked 22nd in HCI. Dell PowerFlex is rated 8.0, while Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Dell PowerFlex writes "Is very resilient and protects our data, but the solution is complex". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure writes "Comes in a small, compact model that does not have any separate management but it is not so stable". Dell PowerFlex is most compared with VxRail, VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Alletra dHCI and HPE SimpliVity, whereas Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure. See our Dell PowerFlex vs. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure report.
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