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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

"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 product has cut down a lot of service tickets. Earlier, people complained about slowness."
"We have this feature in Nimble dHCI, wherein we can upgrade individual components in the infrastructure."
"Artificial intelligence is built into the product. If there's a failure, HP support will proactively call the client about the issue."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI's user interface is very easy to work with."
"The technical support services are good."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI has the most valuable features for performance, resilience, and scalability."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is stable."
"The backup is readily available for use, and the restoration process is easy."
"It allows me to configure High Availability and failover clustering with some fault tolerance, at a cost point that doesn’t break the bank for a small business budget."
"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
"StarWind Virtual SAN can improve an organization's storage infrastructure by providing high availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, performance, and ease of use."
"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."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"StarWind vSAN is a great solution to create a redundant two-node-only Hyper-V cluster, both for domain or workgroup scenarios."
"StarWind was a great price to performance ratio and it had a great support team behind it that helped me configure the solution and also size it to the customer's needs for them not to overpay for it and not get something that was not useful for them."
 

Cons

"I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately."
"Nimble Storage's integration with the management software could be better."
"The deployment of a new server could be improved."
"The implementation process was problematic due to firmware incompatibilities and lengthy support intervention."
"The product's active controller feature needs 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."
"I'm not sure if there are features lacking."
"Software upgrade is still more complicated than the competitors, so that's an area of improvement."
"Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface."
"The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own."
"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"
"I would like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure."
"It took a bit of knowledge and support to put in place but once installed it works fine. Migration (HyperV) from one server to another sometimes takes longer than expected but there is no data loss even if the host crashes."
"We don't really have any issues with this product."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"The Command Center, a free guest VM for management and monitoring, leaves something to be desired. It could have more accurate real-time information and better reporting visuals, which seem to be an afterthought."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."
"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."
"The product is very affordable."
"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."
"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."
"We are happy with the price."
"The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
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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.
880,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.