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HPE Alletra dHCI vs StarWind Virtual SAN 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

HPE Alletra dHCI
Ranking in HCI
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
204
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.0%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN2.1%
HPE Alletra dHCI4.0%
Other93.9%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

TW
IT Consultant at Autonubil System GmbH
Synchronous replication and strong support enhance storage and data protection
The most valuable features of HPE Alletra dHCI are the synchronous replication, the easy extension for more storage, and its strong support. Data protection is very good, offering features such as virtual lock for snapshots, multi-factor authentication, and encryption for volumes. The solution handles workload variability very well without any performance issues even for demanding applications like SAP, SQL, and Citrix.
Jccerong Heron - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs
The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support services are good."
"HPE Alletra dHCI is very comfortable with high performance and quick installation."
"HPE Alletra dHCI was good because we could have the vVols, which we are using for our production server, with the snapshots."
"The most valuable feature of HPE Alletra dHCI is the one-click upgrade function, which allows all drivers and services to be downloaded to all servers easily."
"The integration of AI tools for predictive analysis sets it apart from competitors."
"I love InfoSite. That gets you a lot of good detailed information."
"So far, the solution's performance is very good."
"The nice thing about it is that it truly integrates with the cloud, so I can move my volumes bi-directionally in and out of the cloud."
"You can build cheap, reliable, replicated virtual machines clusters using simple servers with an all flash disk or SAS\SATA hybrid tiered by performance storage."
"The best features are the software's ease of setup and the excellent technical support."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"The failover protection and the ability to expand storage and nodes with no downtime are by far the best physical features we have benefited from."
"We are running Hyper-V on twin servers in failover, and being able to manage servers from anywhere I need to, virtually, has been a game changer."
"We are able to execute maintenance on one server while the other is still running."
"Virtual SAN runs on iSCSI, which is free and easy to configure. It's easy to manage from StarWind's GUI console, and it only required a few extra switch ports."
"It has given the company an almost zero possibility of downtime."
 

Cons

"The solution must be hypervisor-agnostic."
"I rate Nimble one out of 10 for ease of setup. Setting up Nimble Storage was a nightmare. It took us three months to deal with all the kinks and bugs. We had two people from HPE assisting us and two from our team."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI's website does not open properly or work consistently."
"Software upgrade is still more complicated than the competitors, so that's an area of improvement."
"The only issue I'm really running into is we have a SQL server that we're having a lot of high IO latency on one of my drives and it's my data drive from my SQL server. It's not really giving me any good information as to where that latency is coming from, so that's what I'm trying to track down and troubleshoot."
"Companies in small countries face problems with spare parts."
"The implementation process was problematic due to firmware incompatibilities and lengthy support intervention."
"I'm not sure if there are features lacking."
"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."
"This product could be improved with the inclusion of new health check procedures."
"It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI."
"A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful."
"There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."
"The dashboard is functional, but it could benefit from a more modern and visually appealing design."
"While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage."
"When StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere nodes go offline unexpectedly, the nodes have to re-sync disks fully which takes a long time. We had a power failure and when both nodes came online, VMware vSphere didn't see StarWind disks before I manually re-scanned them form ESXi administration console even though it should happen automatically"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the licensing is reasonable."
"The product is very affordable."
"The prices are very high."
"The solution’s pricing was very good."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"The price of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is expensive."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."
"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
"The pricing is more than reasonable."
"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."
"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business165
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
Pricing is rated at six, which is normal. The price is appropriate for the capabilities and features that the customers receive.
What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately. When extending or when servers are already present, normal Alletra systems are more suitable. dHCI projects ofte...
What is your primary use case for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
Our customers' usual use cases for HPE Alletra dHCI ( /products/hpe-alletra-dhci-reviews ) are the same as with the Nimble ( /products/nimble-32125-reviews ) systems: virtualization, storage for bu...
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) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was very good. We were able to get the software at a good cost. I did most of the setup, so there wasn't really any cost there. The professiona...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The only thing that I would say about documentation is there are some aspects of the documentation that are a little bit unclear. However, when I worked through those issues with their professional...
 

Also Known As

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Alletra dHCI vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.