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Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs HPE SimpliVity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes
Ranking in HCI
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE SimpliVity
Ranking in HCI
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is 2.5%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 9.0%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Niraj  Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and is easy to use
The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered. Dell's competitors offer many products at very good prices. I face some issues with the stability of the product, making it an area where improvements are required. In the future, I want to receive technical support directly from the vendor.
Xavier Perez - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is file sharing."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is the flexibility of the nodes. Additionally, if there are any critical issues they update us through emails. The issues are taken care of remotely on the system."
"They are heading in the right direction and moving to integrate everything with a hybrid cloud, and moving workloads back and forth."
"I have found the most important features of Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are the capacity to manage the storage because the storage is built in the servers. The type of profiles you can attribute to the storage is a benefit. You can manage the storage by profiles. Overall the solution is a good speed and performance."
"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."
"The product is useful for DR and other things."
"It is easy to install."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable aspect of the HPE SimpliVity is the DL380 G10. We have mostly been using VMware and Hyper-V. On one side we have Hyper-V and the other side we have the VMware."
"The solution has eliminated the need for overprovisioning. It is designed to take advantage of deduplication strategies, which means we don't have to have as much disk in the system to do the job that we used to have to do."
"Backups happen very quickly."
"Having one management console to do everything from was a great improvement over dealing with separate hardware for servers, SANs, backups etc."
"The interface is very good and is very easy to navigate. You can find everything you need from one central place."
"It has instantaneous backup and lag-free restore. When everything is running, I can bring back a huge VM in less than 30 seconds. That's even better than Veeam."
"PCX card implementation improves speed."
 

Cons

"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes doesn't perform as well as IBM. There are significant limitations, especially with scalability and flexibility over time. For example, adding drives can be problematic if the specific drives aren't available with older nodes that are four or five years old. Unlike IBM, Dell vSAN Ready Nodes isn't as flexible and doesn't scale easily. Additionally, while present, features like deduplication and compression don't perform as efficiently as they do on IBM. Our experience shows that the tool isn't as robust or flexible as advertised."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is a great hyper-converged system that is a perfect platform for supporting any kind of workload. The only workload that it's not designed to support is big data."
"There is room for improvement in the maintenance pricing. Maintenance isn't difficult, but the prices are high and ridiculous. Some customers feel it is better to go with a new solution rather than renew this one."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."
"The Dell VxRail solution is based on vSAN Ready Nodes, but the Dell VxRail is fully automated. It would be helpful if this automation feature could be added to the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. For example, we need to install VMware ESXi, and manually expand the cluster."
"We have experienced some issues with performance."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"Once you select the size of SimpliVity, it could be risky for you to downsize it because you may need maybe to reimplement some things."
"I would like to see it be a truly hybrid-cloud solution where I could take my on-prem SimpliVity environment and have replication to a cloud install."
"There is room for improvement in the operations area because the support for that server space is minimal."
"​I have some worries about the support after the acquisition. ​The support was better before HPE acquired SimpliVity."
"The product is expensive."
"The Omni Card consumes a lot of memory and CPU."
"SimpliVity needs to add support for Hyper-V and KVM."
"The solution could improve by adding better support of the VMware add-ons and a more intuitive user interface for administrators."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."
"Comparing the price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes to other solutions it is not expensive."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"Other vendors fall short on price compared to HPE on this product."
"This solution, while costly as all these solutions are, was in fact less expensive than upgrading my old SAN."
"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."
"Customers always complain that SimpliVity is a little bit higher in price point as compared to other solutions available in the market."
"Scaling isn't cheap"
"One big advantage with SimpliVity is that you don't need the higher license cost or VMware to put together a simple SimpliVity solution."
"There is a one-time purchase needed for the license for HPE SimpliVity. The solution is expensive, but it is worth the money."
"The price is one of the biggest problems our customers have."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
61%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
There is no specific licensing model for vSAN ReadyNodes as it is linked with Broadcom VMware's solutions rather than Dell's. As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to...
What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
Although vSAN ReadyNodes work well, a faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement.
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 researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
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 notable.
 

Also Known As

vSAN Ready Nodes
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace
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 vSAN Ready Nodes vs. HPE SimpliVity and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.