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INFINIDAT InfiniBox vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

INFINIDAT InfiniBox
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (7th)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
HCI (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. INFINIDAT InfiniBox is designed for Enterprise SAN and holds a mindshare of 8.0%, up 1.2% compared to last year.
VMware vSAN, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 8.5% mindshare, down 14.9% since last year.
Enterprise SAN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
INFINIDAT InfiniBox8.0%
Dell PowerStore15.7%
Dell PowerVault13.5%
Other62.8%
Enterprise SAN
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSAN8.5%
VxRail10.4%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.1%
Other72.0%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

GM
Project Deployment at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Good performance, suitable for big data, but the response time could be improved
The primary use case for this product is high-performance storage This product has good performance. It is similar to the Dell PowerMax and Pure Storage FlashArray. The InfiniBox has three active controllers. The response time for read requests can be improved. It is not as good as the solution…
ShyamikaThamel - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium
Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance
VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ease of use, smooth integration into the existing environment, quick and easy management, the number of other features available such as snaps, remote replica, etc are valuable features."
"Overall, this is a good product with good performance."
"Mostly, their support is also great at reacting to issues but moreover, proactive to prevent issues."
"If you have the budget or it's available to you, definitely go for it, because it's going to save money over the traditional SAN."
"It is simple to manage, very easy to implement and troubleshoot in case of any failures."
"I strongly recommend VMware vSAN to others because it is easy to manage, especially if you compare it with traditional server and network storage solutions."
"We had very good access to technical support."
"The solution works well to help businesses simplify their administration, unifying the technology in boxes like vSAN where you see the performance improvements in the configuration with All-Flash."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The most important functionality is the ability to extend cluster storage and cluster computing power securely without loss of data."
"My advice is if someone is interested in VMware vSAN it is a good solution; it is stable, supportive, and compatible with many solutions, and customers have to consider when choosing VMware that they receive a lot of features, such as replication backup, and if they went with another solution it would be more expensive."
 

Cons

"The solution isn’t scalable by itself. It’s a self-contained storage solution, i.e., if you need more space, buy another box."
"The response time for read requests can be improved. It is not as good as the solution from Pure Storage."
"InfiniBox, right now, offers only asynchronous replication between two storages."
"The solution functions as the marketing says, as long as you follow certain rules."
"There is always a challenge with their firmware."
"The monitoring feature in VMware vSAN could be better."
"If the support could be provided more quickly, it would be very helpful."
"We are facing some problems with updates with the VMware vSAN. When we upgraded from version 6.5 to 7, we have been faced with many problems. They have been deploying many hotfixes for this version, and they need to continue to improve this version."
"It is not a good price for small and medium-sized businesses."
"When designing the implementation for vSAN, I have noticed that it requires a minimum of six nodes, and this creates a problem when it comes to maintenance. If, out of the six nodes, I put one node in maintenance mode, then vSAN does not create other VM components."
"This product is very expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The best features come included without any additional cost."
"The license covers any feature and also, the future features are already included. It is as easy as a 1, 2 and 3."
"If they could reduce the cost, it would be better. Licensing costs are something that they could take care of. If you are a smaller and strong IT team, then VMware vSAN is a very good product. If you want to expand in the service provider space, then you will have to go for an open-source solution like OpenStack. We are now looking at OpenStack because we sell licensing costs. We are a service provider, so the IT component data is a substantial component in our overall costing. We feel that OpenStack might help us to cut down the licensing cost. Therefore, we are looking at SAS storage instead of vSAN. SAS is open source, but it is not wise to have open source without having the backend support. We are using RedHat SAS, and it is an open-source solution. You can also have a free version, but we are using it with support from RedHat so that we have somebody to back us up in case we have a problem. If you do normal business, then IT expense is 1% or 2% of the total turnover. The higher licensing costs sometimes don't make difference to the big companies who are not service providers and are using it only for their internal use. For them, the IT cost is 1% or 2%, but for an IT service provider, the IT costs will go up to 15% to 16% of the total cost of the operations. This is where the licensing costs become irrelevant. For example, the licensing cost of using VMware, VC, and vSAN is 8% of my monthly revenue. Every month, I pay about $35,000, and, with the revised plan, it will be something like $50,000 or revenue of 600k per month, which means almost 8% of the revenue is going into VMware licensing. In a very competitive world, 8% as a cost element is huge. So, if I can bring it down to 2%, I save 6% in revenue expenditure. In terms of profit, 6% of 30% is something like another 25% increase in my profit. My profit can be almost 25%. It would be 20% to 25% in case I am able to handle the licensing costs and bring them to a very low level. Because these IT costs are substantial for us, that is why we are going with OpenStack. OpenStack has a limitation that it requires more hardware. There will be some increase in the hardware cost, but overall we will save 5% to 6% of our licensing cost by using OpenStack."
"With vSAN, we didn't find the market that competitive."
"The cost of the solution is high and if it could be reduced the customers would be very happy."
"Users may also start off with the demo version of the tool. After you learn to use the solution, you can buy it if it is beneficial."
"The product's price has been increasing lately...VMware vSAN is expensive."
"ROI from an administrative perspective is clearly much better because I only have to deal with one user interface."
"My customers have found VMware vSAN to be a little expensive."
"The price of the solution package depends on the nodes and other factors. The cost some of our customers paid was $500,000. The licensing cost for the components is very good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business101
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise135
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
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 ...
How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TriCore Solutions
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