HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the HCI category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.5, while Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.9% mindshare in HCI, compared to Dell Technologies’s 21.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

VxRail and HPE Hyper Converged compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure solutions category. HPE Hyper Converged seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive capabilities, despite VxRail's strengths in deployment and customer service.

Features: VxRail integrates well with VMware environments and is easy to scale. HPE Hyper Converged offers flexibility, robust performance across varied workloads, and richer features valuable in diverse scenarios.

Room for Improvement: VxRail faces integration issues with third-party tools and limited customization options. HPE Hyper Converged has configuration complexity challenges. Improvements could enhance capabilities in these areas.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VxRail is straightforward to deploy with responsive customer support, integrating seamlessly with VMware setups. HPE Hyper Converged, though complex to deploy, provides versatile service once set up.

Pricing and ROI: VxRail offers satisfactory initial costs and ROI, being considered cost-effective. HPE is a premium option with higher initial costs but delivers strong long-term value, emphasizing ROI benefits aligned with its capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 2.9%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 21.2%, up from 21.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Hosni

Senior System Engineer at Giza Systems

Feb 24, 2024

Provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor

You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost-effective point. Having used Starwind Virtual SAN for many years both for clients and for internal systems, it has always done exactly what it set out to do. It provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor, but it is most effective with Hyper-V. It's simple and easy to use, The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation.

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Amir Azmy

HPE Account Manager at Ingram Micro company

Feb 14, 2024

A stable and useful product that enables organizations to use any software or database

HPE Hyper Converged is a processor The product enables me to use any software or database. I can connect it from multiple connections. It is a simple product. I do not have any problem with the solution. The product must provide more storage capability. I have been using the solution for four…

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Sushil MIshra

AG at SIS.

Apr 17, 2024

Trouble-free architecture, we don't have to juggle multiple components like in a traditional three-tier architecture

We mainly use it for virtualization across all our applications. We also have a DC/DR setup based on the VxRail infrastructure It's a trouble-free architecture. We don't have to juggle multiple components like in a traditional three-tier architecture. With VxRail, it's a pre-built solution…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run."

"It integrates (fully) with VMware and Veeam, my hypervisor, and backup vendors, so for me, all the puzzle pieces simply fit and work smoothly."

"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."

"Although StarWind Virtual SAN free is fully functional and can be used in production, the support that comes with the license is priceless."

"Before VSAN, hypervisor configuration changes and updates resulted in VM outages. Now, downtime is dramatically reduced."

"The control panel is nice. It gives you a lot of good feedback as to the status and health of the VSAN."

"One of the most valuable features is the way it sets up the virtual SAN, because we don't have to buy a separate appliance for storage. It uses the existing storage on the servers, which is definitely a cost savings for us."

"StarWind vSAN is a great solution to create a redundant two-node-only Hyper-V cluster, both for domain or workgroup scenarios."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

"I've found the data protection features the most valuable."

"The product enables me to use any software or database."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The scalability of this tool is very good. You can basically add more storage and seamlessly expand the current storage that you have."

"The most valuable features of this solution are fast deployment, security, and it is easy to upgrade."

"What I really like about this program, is that it needs little space and it works really fast, so it saves us time."

"The most valuable features are resiliency and data protection."

"Our storage and IT are now at an enterprise level with all the necessary controls and restrictions being enacted."

More HPE Hyper Converged pros

"The stability is very nice. We haven't had any issues with the cluster. The cluster is very stable. No problems with slowness. Everything has been stable. It was well-architectured."

"I like the new releases that Dell EMC is doing with VMware. They are allowing for flexibility across the hybrid cloud. This allows organizations to use containers and to be able to move into the public cloud, but also not have lock-in. They can come back to the private cloud when they want to, so it's creating a lot of flexibility across the stack."

"This solution ensures uptime, providing 100% availability so servers can operate without downtime. It works with VMware on the software side. The solution also has AI capabilities. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. Customer service and support is more than satisfactory. It is easy to deploy. It can be done within a couple of hours. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten."

"The simplicity and manageability of VxRail are most valuable. We have a very good experience with this product. Its stability and scalability are also very good."

"It is scalable. When you are buying it, you have to buy a minimum of three nodes. After that, if you want to add more nodes, you can buy can buy them. You can also add-on additional compute and storage."

"We like the design and that it meets data storage needs."

"VxRail's technical support is very good."

"It has a valuable deduplication feature."

More VxRail pros

Cons

"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."

"It would be great if the Linux version of the management console offered the same features as Windows."

"The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works."

"A central management console may be nice to see all nodes."

"I would like to see some additional, and possibly clearer, implementation videos with some slower and possibly more detailed descriptions of what the various steps of implementation are for someone who is unfamiliar with high availability and failover clustering in Windows."

"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."

"Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible."

"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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

"Scalability requires using additional nodes."

"Its technical support services could be faster."

"The solution is not very stable."

"Scalability is an issue because it becomes very expensive. When you need to upgrade memory, you have to upgrade memory across the nodes. Suppose a customer has gone with a three-node HCI solution, then to increase the memory, you have to do it across the three nodes."

"Though with HPE Hyper Converged, you get everything, the documentation part is very much required, especially if you opt for the solution's subscription-based licensing model."

"A software-only version of the solution, without the hardware, would be nice."

"I would like to see a more intuitive, user-friendly UI."

"The improvements could be customization and backup efficiency."

More HPE Hyper Converged cons

"There's a specific procedure to follow when shutting down a VxRail system."

"The requirements need improvement. Some of the managers of VMs are a little sensitive to where they need to be placed in the environment and what names they need to have. I would like a little more control over that so that it fits into our naming scheme and it fits our organizational structure within vSphere."

"There is a limitation on the number of nodes."

"VxRail should try to improve the pricing."

"There are still some features which aren't built into Cisco, like virtualized networking, that use its applications. However, these can be purchased through another product as an additional licensing cost to us."

"If they continue developing their product regarding VMware, it will be one of the best products in the HCI space. In terms of additional features, there is nothing missing because, for data protection, they also have the CDP option for VM. They can protect the VM at any point in time."

"The price could be better. The backup mechanism could also be better. Some of our clients prefer to work with backup software from a different vendor. They don't do a built-in backup solution. It would be better if they had guidelines on proper sizing and the whole life cycle from the requirement collection. If there aren't any proper guidelines, how do I go to the customer and evaluate their existing infrastructure? How can you do appropriate sizing to migrate to a hyper-converged environment? I think this is a requirement because most of our clients are migrating to a hyper-converged environment. In the next release, they can improve absolutely anything you can think of to improve the product in general—for example, the clusters and backup software."

"We'd like to see more automation capabilities in the future."

More VxRail cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."

"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."

"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."

"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."

"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."

"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."

"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."

"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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

"If I'm comparing with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience."

"With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed."

"The product's pricing is very competitive because HPE provides a buyback policy to users...Users can make either monthly or yearly payments towards the licensing cause of the solution."

"The price per value compared to other solutions, like Nutanix and SimpliVity. (We made the deal before approval of HPE SimpliVity deal)."

"It is a cost-effective solution."

"Pricing with Dell EMC is double the price which I paid for HPE. However, in the end, Dell EMC is double in performance. This is not an apple to apple comparison though, as I have a four node from Dell EMC and a three node."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"The solution is too expensive for our customers. The pricing should be lower."

More HPE Hyper Converged pricing and cost advice

"The real ROI is the benefit of being able to do a true hybrid cloud, not having to move from CAPEX to OPEX in a pure break."

"We pay for annual support from VxRail."

"The licensing aspect is the most painful for some of our customers. Customers go for a VMware license that's standard and then they find they have to go with the enterprise solution and adjust the license. If you have a limited budget, that's difficult."

"We were expecting Dell EMC to bring us something that would work very quickly and easily, but also be at a reasonable price point, and they did."

"The price point needs improvement, certainly for smaller SMBs. The cost of it is still quite painful. I think all vendors should do a product which is capped either by terabytes, IOPs, or VM instances. It should be an SMB solution that's going to make hyper-converged solutions easier for SMBs to get hold of. It's fine for those big guys that have billions of dollars of budget, but not for customers who have barely a 100,000 dollars or pounds in budget."

"The solution is priced well for businesses."

"VxRail is an expensive solution."

"The hardware cost associated is a bit high"

More VxRail pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user759894

Development and IT Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 19, 2018

Performance is robust, but Dell EMC VxRail is easier to implement

HPE Hyper Converged handles all the network setup for my servers and data. My experience is in SMBs Before we bought the HPE Hyper Converged servers, we had scattered systems and servers. Our data was scattered. When the solution came into place, we were able to connect all our data and organize…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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) combin...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

If you are comfortable with the solution and you feel that you don't need support, you can begin with the free licenc...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limite...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Hyper Converged?

The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?

The solution's pricing for the hardware and support could be reduced.

See all answers

How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...

See all answers

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 e...

See all answers

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not bein...

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Comparisons

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 28% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 3% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Dell PowerFlex vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 17% of the time

VMware vSAN vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 8% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 7% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Hyper Converged Competitors

Dell PowerFlex vs VxRail

Compared 33% of the time

VMware vSAN vs VxRail

Compared 21% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail

Compared 15% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail

Compared 7% of the time

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs VxRail

Compared 4% of the time

More VxRail Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

October 2024

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Hyper Converged

November 2024

Download HPE Hyper Converged product report

Buyer's Guide

VxRail

October 2024

Download VxRail product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS

VCE VxRail

Learn More

StarWind

Video not available

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Dell Technologies

Overview

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

HPE Hyper Converged solutions combine intuitive software with the reliability of a world class platform to deliver cloud-like simplicity to your business.

Now, IT can become an internal service provider to end-users by quickly delivering the resources they need for application development and consumption. With HPE Hyper Converged systems companies can operate with cloud efficiency to simplify IT operations with one comprehensive control panel to deploy, monitor, analyze and update – with a single generalist; consume with cloud flexibility to deliver a cloud-like experience, with multi-tenant workspaces that eliminate stranded resources and flexes on demand; and deploy at cloud speed to empower developers and lines-of-business with a self-service portal that can instantly compose and recompose VMs in minutes. Built-in enterprise grade features, such as performance and resiliency enable HPE Hyper Converged systems to easily handle a wide variety of virtualized workloads, including general purpose virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and cloud.

VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance based on VMware virtual SAN Software and is jointly engineered and built with VMware, for VMware, to enhance Vmware. VxRail software-defined architecture simplifies compute, storage, virtualization, and management. It will safeguard performance, reliability, and flexibility across your organization with a broad range of workloads and applications from business-critical to next-gen. With VxRail, you are covered.

VxRail is a single turn-key appliance that is a validated, fully integrated, pre-configured, pre-tested solution and offers non-disruptive scaling. Every node includes compute storage and IO. All-flash configurations can contain between 12-28 cores per node. The storage capacity options run from 7.6 TB to 19TB with either 256 GB or 512GB of memory. Hybrid appliances may have 6-20 cores per node, 3.6 TB to 10 TB of storage capacity, and 24GB to 256 GB of memory.

VxRail offers high availability fail-over, an active/active stretch cluster, and VSan Kernal integration. VxRail is a power-edged server with APIs built on automation. There are over 15 million different combinations of hardware available with VxRail. VxRail provides a simple, cost-effective solution that solves a large range of use cases. Additionally, you also get a mixed workloads automated system that is backed with fully automated system updates, and complete end-to-end lifecycle management all in a single two-rack appliance.

VxRail is a value-added suitable solution for distributed small to mid-sized enterprises, remote offices, private clouds, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). You choose the deployment option that best suits your organizational needs, from appliance to integrated rack offerings, with or without networking, and it will be delivered to you, ready to deploy out-of-box.

If you know VMware, you know VxRail.

VxRail Features and Benefits

Seamlessly accelerate deployment to a hybrid cloud
Fast data center modernization
Create developer-ready Kubernetes platforms

Powerful performance and reliability
Improve and simplify operational efficiency
Excellent integration
Save time
Reduce costs

Reviews from Real Users

VxRail is an all-in-one solution: "You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."

VxRail is remarkable: “The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail…”

VxRail is a powerful performer: “...VxRail delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated.”

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha

World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox

Buyer's Guide

HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail

October 2024

Free Report: HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Hyper Converged vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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