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HPE SimpliVity vs HPE StoreVirtual comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
189
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
HPE SimpliVity
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
HCI (6th)
HPE StoreVirtual
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

HCI
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Hosni - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Xavier Perez - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 3, 2024
Has a deployment phase that is straightforward but needs improvement in the area of scalability
The main issue with HPE SimpliVity is that you are very attached to VMware or VMware dependencies because the tool works with VMware technology. HPE SimpliVity is an add-on from VMware. Nowadays, my company has a lot of concerns about VMware's licensing policy. Another big concern of the tool is related to security because one has to continuously update patch vulnerabilities that are appearing continuously in VMware's different versions. Actually, the foundation of all the architecture is VMware and that is one of the main issues with the tool. My company is analyzing our virtual infrastructure strategy to see if we can move to Nutanix because maybe it may work better and might have another approach. Nutanix is absolutely independent of VMware. I could add that since HPE SimpliVity is very precisely dependent on VMware, it is not open to containers unlike Nutanix, for example. The aforementioned area is a concern that needs to be resolved by HPE.
Vebjorn Nergaard - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 9, 2020
Stable, scalable, and easy to manage
The solution is deployed with two nodes and then users have a network ride. The storage solution synchronizes, and it's quite like the StarWind solution. We installed two storage virtual machines and they synchronize with each other. That way, if one goes down, the other one will have the same…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ROI is great on this product."
"The ability to host high availability storage between existing servers without additional hardware is a great benefit. This not only saves money but also reduces the complexity of the hardware configuration creating fewer points of failure."
"The product's core feature of virtualizing our storage is by far the most valuable."
"StarWind Virtual SAN can improve an organization's storage infrastructure by providing high availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, performance, and ease of use."
"The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."
"This solution enables us to make better cost-effective use of our existing hardware and leverage the current infrastructure at a higher level than we could before."
"We test live failovers every week, and so far, everything has been running smoothly without anything unexpected."
"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 rate of compression for the data in SimpliVity is the most valuable feature."
"It is a stable solution."
"Improves backup time and DR solution."
"The compression and deduplication features are most valuable because they allow us to have a small footprint for storage. It is a very stable product, and we are also able to get all that we need in terms of reporting."
"Looking at the way that our infrastructure team works now, we don't think about infrastructure, storage, or compute anymore. The solution just works. It is same with the backup and replication side of things, as it just works on schedule. We don't have to manage it tightly, like we used to."
"The ability to backup our data without requiring additional storage media or software application was a huge gain."
"The compression and deduplication ratio."
"It doesn't take long to mount the entire VM somewhere and then copy it. That's one of the things that I like about SimpliVity's deduplication and compression. I can literally stand up a backup in minutes. It is like no time at all. They've got pretty phenomenal deduplication and compression. Within SimpliVity, one of the things that they do is deduplication and compression on ingestion. So, on the front side, everything is deduplicated and compressed, which, of course, adds some overhead to their solution. For instance, in my environment today, I've got roughly 30 terabytes of raw storage, and with their deduplication and compression, I'm over the 300 terabyte threshold with my active servers and all my backups."
"It allows compute and storage to operate separately, and has the ability to take SAN nodes out of production for maintenance with little effort and zero downtime."
"Simplicity of not having to buy FC or FCoE SAN. Instead, we buy servers with their own storage."
"All of the administrative tasks are easy and everything is centralized."
"HPE StoreVirtual is very easy to use from the management console."
"A company can scale it easily."
"StoreVirtual is that it is our software-defined solution and it's everywhere."
"he interface and the installation makes it easy as it's all in one piece of hardware and it doesn't need to be connected to anything else."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"The GUI deserves a little love."
"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."
"Management tools could be improved, sometimes the usage seems to be slowed down and confusing. A native web interface could also be an option. I love to see in the future port of the software on a general Linux distribution like RedHat or Ubuntu in order to avoid windows license costs. I would also like to see features like erasure coding implemented. On the VSAN software, I would like to see some improvements in the storage pools (eliminate the usage of the file as a data container and use the raw partition)."
"I'd love to see more clarification for us folks who are smart enough to do some damage yet not smart enough to use CLI."
"The management console of StarWind Virtual SAN is pretty complex."
"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."
"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."
"Currently, the StarWind management console is a bit clunky to navigate and isn't the most user-intuitive interface."
"There is room for improvement in the operations area because the support for that server space is minimal."
"The solution wasn't able to connect to the cloud, and there's no micro-segmentation. The configuration of this solution is also complex."
"SimpliVity needs to improve the support for native backups, like SQL and Exchange."
"The upgrades need improvement."
"Once I am onto the SimpliVity environment, I always have to go with HP because I am somewhat blocked, like Apple. Secondly, if I want to increase only storage, I need to buy an entire computing node for that, an entire HCI node."
"While SimpliVity was a pioneer of cloud connect capability, they have simply not exploited it."
"I would like to see it be a truly hybrid-cloud solution where I could take my on-prem SimpliVity environment and have replication to a cloud install."
"One thing that I would like to see improved is the flexibility of the node expansion."
"Hardware and disk failures are happening frequently."
"In our country, Qatar, most of the industry isn't using too much HP. StoreVirtual doesn't move fast. It's not a popular product."
"The solution needs to ensure it is on par with the industry in terms of availability of features and various other options."
"I would like to have this solution easily integrate with VMware."
"It would be nice if there were more parts available in Brazil and HPE could swap out faulty equipment quicker."
"f you're doing the 10Gb adapters, SFPs don't come with it, but it doesn't say that. It might say that somewhere else, but it's not clear."
"The initial setup could be simplified to make it easier for new users."
"The penalty for the availability is performance. So, you have to balance or choose between the availability and the performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."
"The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
"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."
"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."
"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."
"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."
"The price should be cheaper."
"Its price is pretty good as compared to the other solutions, but it is quite expensive if we compare it with non-HCI solutions."
"It is expensive for this market. Everyone says that it is a very good product, but the only complaint is about the price."
"The price is one of the biggest problems our customers have."
"The price of the solution is reasonable. We have purchased a five-year license with all the support and upgrades."
"The licenses from the product are expensive compared to the other solutions in the market."
"The solution is expensive; not every budget can fit in there."
"The only thing that I think we are paying for is the VMware licenses, but we are enterprise, so it is not horrible."
"For our organization, I believe the cost is 16,000 Euros for a three-year license. It costs a bit more to do the maintenance on our servers as well. It's also on an HP ProLiant server and an organization will need to do the maintenance there also. I believe the price for that is around 2000 Euros a year."
"If you buy a five-year license, not only does the technical support expire after five years, but you also lose the ability to change and expand the VSA, and the systems won't go down."
"One of the key features about it is that when you buy either a VSA license or a StoreVirtual appliance, all your software's included."
"It costs less than $10,000 for one machine. If it costs more than 15% higher than this, then the customer may change to another solution."
"The prices are OK, so we don't have much difficulty selling HPE in Brazil."
"Licensing is not exactly straightforward, but not the worst I have ever seen."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
 

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...
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...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limite...
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 resea...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
The price is almost equal to VMware vSAN, making it not much cost saving. However, the time-saving during upgrades is...
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Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
HPE StoreVirtual, HPE VSA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
NBrIX, WIND Telecom, Netrics
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