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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

"Artificial intelligence is built into the product. If there's a failure, HP support will proactively call the client about the issue."
"With regards to performance, configuration, and longevity it is upgradeable, which means it has a good TCO rate. These are valuable aspects to me."
"The latency is very low."
"The solution works well."
"Simply being able to move objects and the duplication feature have been quite effective."
"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 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."
"Nimble is easy to use, but hard to install. Once it's installed, it's user-friendly. Reporting is another advantage because we get a lot of statistical forecasting. It helps us see into the future with that."
"The ProActive support gives me peace of mind because I am a one man shop, but with the technical support behind me, I feel like more than just one person. We spent two to three hours, depending on what we have to do, always on the phone, and they do not push to end the call."
"The StarWind VSAN is always up and allows us to move VMS to other nodes for maintenance, without interruption to service."
"Highly available storage is the most valuable feature. The entire rollout is hyper-converged and requires no extra storage further than the hosts in which Hyper-V is running. Another feature that has been great is the support from StarWind in general. We have their proactive support package on the main cluster that employs Starwind Virtual SAN."
"When using new (warranty) servers, you can forget about the storage service for several years. The users will not even notice the failure of two servers out of three."
"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."
"As the client had acquired another company some distance away, they were concerned about having a single SAN in one location or the other. StarWind vSAN allowed us to keep a copy of the data local to each site without asking the client to pay for two SANs in addition to the two new servers they needed."
"StarWind saved us about 80% of our storage costs over our old solution."
"With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability."
 

Cons

"The product is expensive."
"The product’s performance needs improvement. It could also help with more environment monitoring and AI technologies to improve the performance and thresholds."
"I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately."
"The solution must be hypervisor-agnostic."
"Lacking integration to the cloud."
"Cost-wise, this solution is slightly more expensive than other hyperconverged solutions."
"Sometimes the technical support would get back to us in two hours, but other times it would take them two or even three days to respond."
"The solution could improve by providing better file-level restoration and DVX system options."
"Perhaps more reporting features on the utilization, usage, and performance of the configured high-availability images and underlying physical disks would be helpful."
"A web management interface would be good, especially for those coming from other solutions that have one."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved."
"We have, in rare cases, received conflicting guidance between different support folks within StarWind."
"Although minor, some of the documentation could be rewritten to be clearer."
"I struggled when bit figuring out how to go about doing the evaluation."
"There should be publicly available tutorials on YouTube or other platforms that help the users to integrate this solution with other platforms, for example."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is very affordable."
"The product licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."
"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"The prices are very high."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The product is costly."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
"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 support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."
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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 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.
880,511 professionals have used our research since 2012.