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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

"Simply being able to move objects and the duplication feature have been quite effective."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI has the most valuable features for performance, resilience, and scalability."
"We have the ability to increase the storage without any additional costs."
"HPE Alletra dHCI is very comfortable with high performance and quick installation."
"It is easier to manage compared to the other vendors."
"Nimble Storage is a capable platform with high availability."
"Very good in-line compression."
"The technical support services are good."
"Training is also easy as it is just one system to learn."
"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."
"It has a nice, simple control panel. You can clearly see the state and health of storage along with the synchronization."
"StarWind has provided us with a top-notch, well-supported, robust vSAN offering when other vendors have moved to hyper-converged solutions that are outside of our average clients' reach from a financial and resource perspective."
"For those basic uses, it's simple to set up and manage, and it seems to do a fine job."
"We can lose a site or even two of our three, and we would lose no data and have no outage."
"The product's core feature of virtualizing our storage is by far the most valuable."
"It's quite easy to install."
 

Cons

"The deployment of a new server could be improved."
"I can tier my data in different storage on the cloud, but I cannot tier the data with HPE Alletra dHCI."
"I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately."
"The product does not support file services."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI's website does not open properly or work consistently."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"The performance of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI could improve. Other solutions, such as Cisco, are better."
"High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."
"I did not see any indication that StarWinds vSAN is a usable solution with non-GUI instances of Hyper-V."
"I wish they would improve the documentation for the beginner level as it's not very clear on the web page."
"Our company was hoping for deduplication and encryption across HCI. That is currently not supported."
"It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI."
"We have, in rare cases, received conflicting guidance between different support folks within StarWind."
"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."
"I'd love to see native export of metrics (via Prometheus or something of that nature) to allow us to get more metrics available on our existing dashboard software."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"The product is costly."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The prices are very high."
"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is much cheaper than the competition and has value proposition. Customers can see an ROI in three months. There are no additional costs, and VMware licenses can be reutilized."
"The product licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."
"The solution’s pricing was very good."
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."
"The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"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."
"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
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.
879,927 professionals have used our research since 2012.