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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
11th
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 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 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

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.
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

"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."
"We find the initial implementation process simple and straightforward."
"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."
"If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability."
"vSAN ReadyNodes offer easy scalability, which has proven beneficial for storage needs."
"I rate vSAN ReadyNodes as a nine out of ten."
"It is easy to install."
"The option to deploy a hyper-converged system without an expensive storage switch was a benefit."
"The solution has easily deployed instances for multiple fast-paced projects."
"The most valuable feature is the high-availability. We have three nodes, and all data will be synched instantly through all the nodes. Even if we had a disaster where two nodes failed, containing dozens of critical machines, almost automatically, all the loads would be run on the remaining node."
"We also substantially reduced network complexity by eliminating that standalone SAN. That reduced complexity has allowed us to concentrate on improving other areas of our network."
"The most valuable aspect of StarWind is the all-in-one solution that they provide."
"Their support team is extremely helpful, and they are pretty friendly and knowledgeable."
"The hardware footprint is perfect. It fits in our rack perfectly, and we were able to condense a lot of physical servers we had. It has greatly eliminated the excess stuff in our server rack..."
"In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Currently, it's like a black box that only Dell technical support knows how to handle."
"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."
"Dell vSAN Ready Nodes' deployment is complex."
"The deployment is done by doing it one by one and could be simplified."
"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."
"This product is not sufficiently scalable."
"Compatibility with other hardware nodes needs to be improved."
"The solution should provide daily task alerts for data recovery maintenance, usage, and other instructions to ensure the systems are in a good status."
"I think that the pre-installation questionnaire was a little confusing and ambiguous."
"The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss."
"The only area that the product could improve would be user training."
"We have to pay for support, which is high-end support. That can be expensive, at least for us."
"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..."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."
"At times there has been a language barrier when communicating issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 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."
"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
"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."
"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
"In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."
"Its cost was reasonable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.