Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node comparison

Dell Technologies and Lenovo are both solutions in the HCI category. Dell Technologies is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.7, while Lenovo is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.0. Dell Technologies holds a 2.6% mindshare in HCI, compared to Lenovo’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell vSAN Ready Nodes and Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node 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

Download the complete report

Helped 814,763 peers since 2012

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 vSAN Ready Nodes is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node is 0.4%, up from 0.3% 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.

Read full review

Saleh Khalid

college student at Imam University

Sep 24, 2024

Efficient consolidated storage and plug-and-play with room for more flexibility

We use Dell vSAN Ready Nodes for our insurance systems and employee systems, to host everything in one environment Using Dell vSAN Ready Nodes has consolidated our storage, which lifts most of the heavy work. The most beneficial feature is the consolidated storage which is the vSAN. It handles…

Read full review

N_R

Senior Account Manager at Emirates Business Machines (EBM)

Oct 27, 2023

Provides a valuable concept of hyper-convergence, but its support services could be faster

The product’s most valuable feature is the concept of hyper-convergence Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node’s support services could be faster. We have been using Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node for four to five years. From the hardware perspective, it is a stable product. The product is…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"StarWind Virtual SAN is essentially hardware agnostic, allowing us to build out a specific hardware layer based upon the customer's unique requirements."

"I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have."

"StarWind saved us about 80% of our storage costs over our old solution."

"The StarWind VSAN is always up and allows us to move VMS to other nodes for maintenance, without interruption to service."

"Implementing Starwind in our organization has been a game-changer, particularly in terms of cost savings. By leveraging Starwind's virtual tape library (VTL) solution, we have been able to use virtual tapes for our backups, which are then saved in Azure Blob storage."

"The ease of reaching the support team and their promptness for support is great."

"vSAN we found was simple to set up, easy to configure and manage and allows us to achieve storage redundancy."

"The failover redundancy is why we bought this product and it has never let us down."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"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."

"No concerns regarding the footprint in the data center."

"You don't have to spend much time evaluating the hardware. It can be deployed in a short time. The tool is also easy to upgrade."

"The product is useful for DR and other things."

"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is file sharing."

"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."

"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."

"The most beneficial feature is the consolidated storage which is the vSAN. It handles most of the heavy work."

Cons

"They require more media visibility."

"It could have a dashboard so that you can check all servers' SAN health and performance."

"Management tools could be improved, sometimes the usage seems to be slowed down and confusing. A native web interface could also be an option. I love to see in the future port of the software on a general Linux distribution like RedHat or Ubuntu in order to avoid windows license costs. I would also like to see features like erasure coding implemented. On the VSAN software, I would like to see some improvements in the storage pools (eliminate the usage of the file as a data container and use the raw partition)."

"The software could benefit from more tooling to help with initial deployment."

"I would like to see different levels of support offered."

"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."

"I would like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure."

"The most disappointing side of the application is the free edition. There used to be GUI attached. That has recently changed to only CLI management of the application."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

"This product is not sufficiently scalable."

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."

"Upgrades are carried out manually."

"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."

"Currently, it's like a black box that only Dell technical support knows how to handle."

"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes must be flexible since it is complex in designing concepts. It needs to improve stability. The product should integrate with the public cloud."

"The solution doesn't scale."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."

"We are happy with the price."

"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."

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

"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."

"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"

"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."

"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."

"The price of the solution was reasonable."

"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."

"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."

"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."

"The product has competitive pricing."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

13%

University

10%

Government

10%

Retailer

10%

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...

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 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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?

Comparing it with similar solutions, it was more pricey. Including the VCF solution, it was at a higher price point.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?

The solution should offer more flexibility and freedom for the customer. Currently, it's like a black box that only D...

See all answers

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node?

The product’s most valuable feature is the concept of hyper-convergence.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node?

The product has competitive pricing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node?

Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node’s support services could be faster.

See all answers

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

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

VxRail vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes

Compared 39% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes

Compared 11% of the time

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell vSAN Ready Nodes

Compared 5% of the time

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

October 2024

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes

November 2024

Download Dell vSAN Ready Nodes product report

Buyer's Guide

HCI

November 2024

Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node report

Download Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

vSAN Ready Nodes

Lenovo MX Certified Node, ThinkAgile MX Certified Node

Learn More

StarWind

Video not available

Dell Technologies

Lenovo

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.

Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes are pre-configured building blocks that reduce deployment
risks with certified configurations, improve storage efficiency by up to 50%1
, and can help
you build or scale your vSAN cluster faster.14 Whether you're just getting started, and/or
expanding your existing VMware environment, Dell EMC is here for you every step of the
way with consulting, education, deployment and support services for the entire solution.

Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Nodes are designed for deploying highly available, highly scalable hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) and software-defined storage (SDS) from Microsoft on Lenovo enterprise platforms. The ThinkAgile MX Certified Nodes deliver fully validated and integrated Lenovo hardware and firmware that is certified for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI solutions.

This product guide provides essential technical and pre-sales information on the Lenovo ThinkAgile MX Certified Node for Hybrid Storage, its key features and specifications, components and options, and configuration guidelines.

This guide is intended for technical specialists, sales specialists, sales engineers, IT architects, and other IT professionals who want to learn more about the ThinkAgile MX Certified Node and consider its use in IT solutions.

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Rackspace

Information Not Available

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best HCI vendors.

We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.