Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
189
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.2%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Antonin Pavlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Effortless upgrades with one-click feature while new server deployment needs a smoother process
I have a data center, and all the servers are connected to HPE Alletra dHCI. I use it for data management with VMware running on the servers 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…
MIT - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up and maintain with good performance capabilities
Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline. ATM (20220609) is still necessary, since taking a node offline without properly activating the maintenance mode on the vSAN would trigger a full sync of the vSAN nodes. This is fine and a good thing since it ensures data integrity. However, there is something in the making that would ensure integrity without a full sync after a node goes down, which, as stated above, one could "abuse" to patch (and boot = take down) the hypervisors during business hours 😁 Other than that, the thing is rock stable and chugging along without issues. We are an SMB so we "only" have around 50 VMs on our FO cluster, which is a medium load for SSDs. If you plan to go more to the "max" side of performance use, do proper testing!

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I love InfoSite. That gets you a lot of good detailed information."
"With regards to performance, configuration, and longevity it is upgradeable, which means it has a good TCO rate. These are valuable aspects to me."
"So far, the solution's performance is very good."
"The product provides zero downtime."
"HPE Alletra dHCI was good because we could have the vVols, which we are using for our production server, with the snapshots."
"The product has cut down a lot of service tickets. Earlier, people complained about slowness."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is stable."
"The solution is useful for taking storage snapshots, has high performance, and the CASL architecture is good for optimizing workloads."
"Updates to server hardware are now painless and done during working hours with zero stress. We had a RAID failure a few months back, and nobody in the building even noticed and there was no after hours time used for repair."
"Besides being 80% cheaper than the other alternatives, the simplicity makes reconfiguration and support much easier."
"The StarWind Virtual SAN provides a clever and unique solution to the Computing Split Brain problem."
"It has improved our organization in terms of its uptime as our main cluster has never been offline due to a SAN failure."
"We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment."
"The features that I found most valuable are ease of use of the software that StarWind offers - with the first setup being a bit painful."
"It provides shared storage to multiple hypervisor hosts. Times had changed, however. StarWind Virtual SAN is the “software replaces hardware” for SAN. We have access control and CCTV systems up and running using Microsoft clustering and shared storage"
"The most important feature is the ability to experience the loss of one node or one storage device, and not lose the entire cluster."
 

Cons

"Nimble Storage's integration with the management software could be better."
"The solution could improve by providing better file-level restoration and DVX system options."
"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."
"They could expand product support to Microsoft Hyper-V and Red Hat Linux platforms."
"Lacking integration to the cloud."
"The product does not support file services."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI currently is promoting only VMware as a hypervisor, whereas if they can look into other OSs, such as KVM or Red Hat, it would be an improvement."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI's website does not open properly or work consistently."
"Improvements in documentation and support resources could enhance the user experience."
"They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor."
"It would help if the manufacturer provided clearer and more detailed documentation, with explanations of how the application can be installed in various HA configurations."
"We would like to see the documentation more fully developed."
"Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."
"For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."
"I wish the sync after a failure, such as hardware failure or power-related issues, for example, was faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the licensing is reasonable."
"The price of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is expensive."
"The solution’s pricing was very good."
"The product is very affordable."
"The prices are very high."
"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."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"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."
"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
The price of HPE Alletra dHCI is considered expensive for small businesses, however, it is suitable for medium to large companies.
What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
The deployment of a new server could be improved. I would like to add servers to the existing stack more easily, and there should be a function to reinstall servers with a one-click installation pr...
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?
Choose StarWind Virtual SAN, it is the most flexible, reliable and cheap solution.
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
While using StarWind Virtual SAN so far, I have not found anything missing. It is true that we are using it in a very strict project in which we were looking for a solution that would satisfy a str...
 

Also Known As

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Learn More

 

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: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.