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HPE Alletra dHCI vs VMware vSAN 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
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 15.6%, down from 18.6% 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…
Yves Sandfort - PeerSpot reviewer
Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources
Stability can be improved. Adding all these new features is nice, but we are now at the level where most of the features you need in production are there. The stability is not from a day-to-day operations perspective, but more from a supportability perspective, because currently some of the support scenarios require you to completely evacuate hosts or the complete cluster. That sometimes can be a stretch. This would clearly be an improvement if the support teams were given additional tools to make that easier. Upgradability could be a bit easier sometimes. We are now where vSAN can be updated without ESXi, but there is still enough dependency. So that would be good if that actually would be uncoupled even more. Dashboards are there, and we use vROps as well. So, we have all the beauty of capacity planning and everything over there. That's not really something where we need a lot of other things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration of AI tools for predictive analysis sets it apart from competitors."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is stable."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI has the most valuable features for performance, resilience, and scalability."
"The product provides zero downtime."
"So far, the solution's performance is very good."
"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 Storage is a capable platform with high availability."
"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."
"Flexibility, growth, and expansion are probably the more important features for us. As our environment grows, the more users come on, the more VDI workstations that we need, we can easily expand either horizontally or vertically with the environment"
"Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance."
"Stretched Cluster is one of the big features that we use across multiple data centers."
"The valuable features are its scalability and the standardization - one size fits all. It's also intuitive and easy to use because one size fits all. Obviously, it scales out, but it's the same solution at every physical location I manage."
"The solutions best feature is that it is easy to use."
"VMware vSAN is easy to configure, with basic functionality and the customer can maintain the solution."
"It is simple to manage, very easy to implement and troubleshoot in case of any failures."
"If we decide to expand, vSAN could offer us some flexibility. We are researching ways to set this up from a new data center, which is located somewhere different from the current location right now."
 

Cons

"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."
"Their documentation needs to be simpler to read yet more detailed so it's easy to compare models and easier for clients to pick."
"The product’s performance needs improvement. It could also help with more environment monitoring and AI technologies to improve the performance and thresholds."
"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."
"Software upgrade is still more complicated than the competitors, so that's an area of improvement."
"The product is expensive."
"It should be easier to use."
"The monitoring feature in VMware vSAN could be better."
"I am looking for more of a software-defined storage platform that uses different protocols, such as iSCSI, NFS, and CIS, and maybe also has an object as part of that. They should 100% make it more of a storage-based product where it is not linked just to VMware, and it also has NFS and iSCSI built-in at a scalable level. They should turn it more into a dedicated storage-as-a-service platform instead of just being built into the VMware kernel. Their level one and level two support is not at all good, and it should be improved."
"I think it needs to be more cost-effective. I would also say that even though the capacity is good, there is also room for improvement there. Also, they could improve the security of the system."
"Improvements are also needed as per the customer's requirements."
"I would like a better Hardware Certification List (HCL). The HCL should a little easier to deal with."
"I would like more integration with the hardware when it comes to disc types and supporting the newer types of storage."
"The only thing I can think of at this time is to improve the performance monitoring and performance visibility within the GUI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"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 licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."
"The cost is expensive. I purchased two servers. The hardware cost was $19,000. The software cost for these two servers, including the vSAN, was $30,000, which is $11,000 more than the hardware. Then I had to pay another $5,000 for installation and implementation for professional services. In total, it was $54,000 for two vSAN Servers."
"Every product is licensed with full support for a certain number of years. The licensing could be cheaper."
"The vSAN licensing is not an inexpensive product. It does cost more than hypervisor."
"The product is quite expensive, regarding the open source solution."
"The licensing cost is high and should be taken into account."
"I would like to use more advanced models of the solution but the price needs to be reduced. There are some extra costs for this solution including a license."
"What made us go with this solution was price point. When you can utilize existing storage infrastructure, and not have to continually purchase new SAN products out there that are going up in price as time goes by, then it's a wonderful thing."
"The product’s pricing is a bit higher than other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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 Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
 

Also Known As

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Alletra dHCI vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.