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Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind HyperConverged App...
Ranking in HCI
14th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is 2.6%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Saleh Khalid - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient consolidated storage and plug-and-play with room for more flexibility
The initial setup was straightforward. However, there is a need for detailed steps, and missing any step could result in the solution not working. The whole environment, including designing and preparation, took around two weeks, and the deployments, including shipping of the servers and everything, took another two weeks to make it production ready. It was around four weeks in total from starting design to being production ready.
Russ Le Puill - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with improved speed and resilience
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most beneficial feature is the consolidated storage which is the vSAN. It handles most of the heavy work."
"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 most valuable feature is the set of user tools that are available."
"The tool's most valuable feature is high availability."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"I rate vSAN ReadyNodes as a nine out of ten."
"They are heading in the right direction and moving to integrate everything with a hybrid cloud, and moving workloads back and forth."
"We find the initial implementation process simple and straightforward."
"The initial setup is straightforward once you know what you're doing."
"We run probably 16 virtual machines, and all of them are now highly available, and highly redundant."
"The product runs wonderfully and has already gone through several failure tests."
"StarWind's proactive support is my favorite feature."
"The software is great. It's very easy to understand. I've not delved into any of the command-line stuff, but there's no real need to script it. Since it went in, pretty much the only thing that I have needed to do is increase device image sizes and that process is very straightforward."
"Having this all backed up by pro-active support gives us good peace of mind."
"It is the perfect solution for hyper-convergence at a fair price. Our customers have Hyper-V and VMware environments, with Windows servers and Linux."
"The sales process is easy."
 

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."
"Although vSAN ReadyNodes work well, a faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement."
"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."
"Scalability is an area that could be improved. We are looking at a maximum of 32 nodes now in a cluster, but going to 64 or 128 would be a major advantage."
"The solution doesn't scale."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."
"The only issues are when Hyper V itself has limitations and I'd love to see support or enhancement in the area of direct-attached GPU cards."
"Product shipments did have a few bumps along the way, but that's to be expected when using any shipping company."
"The only critique I might have is that the support is overseas in Eastern Europe and, on occasion, there has been a language issue. But in general, they're as good as can be..."
"Updates need improvement."
"The management console could use a facelift."
"At times there has been a language barrier when communicating issues."
"I would request that the terms and conditions be reviewed and made more acceptable to corporate security so that we could finally turn on the proactive support feature, as it is included with our support agreement."
"We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"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."
"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."
"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."
"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."
"The HCA price is all-inclusive (setup, hardware, support, warranty), except for your standard Microsoft Server licensing."
"The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
"In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."
"The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.
What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our inf...
What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...
 

Also Known As

vSAN Ready Nodes
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace
Sears Home and Franchise Business
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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