Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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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

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series

Ranking in HCI

18th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind Virtual SAN

Ranking in HCI

4th

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

191

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Adeel Hashmi

IT Technical Advisor at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees

With an easy deployment phase, the tool offers good scalability and stability

Suppose you don't compare Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series with the newest features available in the other variants of the product, then everything is pretty standard, so I cannot pinpoint any areas of issue in particular. With Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, the firmware from VMware or Nutanix takes time to be made available compared to other products that we use in our company's IT environment. If you want to go to a certain version of VMware and check what Nutanix offers, you see that both the offerings don't go hand in hand, and you have to wait for a quarter or two quarters until you see the same versions of both being made available for the other products, like Dell or HPE. There is a delay in the availability of similar versions of firmware from both the products, which are VMware and Nutanix for Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, due to the delayed releases from both products, maybe by a quarter or so. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in a solution. In future releases of the product, I may want some improvements to be made in the products from Nutanix and VMware.

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WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

Seamless integrations, high availability, and offers a free version

Although I am generally satisfied with VSAN and its performance, there are some areas that could be improved to enhance its effectiveness even further. One area that could benefit from improvement is scalability. While the tool works well in its current configuration, allowing for greater ease and flexibility in adding new nodes to the cluster without complications would be very beneficial, especially in growing environments. Additionally, I would like to see additional features in the next version, such as better support for automated resource management. This could include proactive suggestions for optimizing storage and memory usage, as well as preventive alerts about the health status of the servers. A more intuitive interface or an improved dashboard for monitoring the cluster would also be helpful, as it would facilitate performance tracking and help identify potential issues before they affect services.

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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 most valuable features of the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series are the ease of use and simple configuration."

"The initial setup is simple. We were able to deliver the hyper-convergence solution in a very good time."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the product's deployment phase is pretty easy."

"This solution has a very good user interface, with simple administration/management."

"StarWind Virtual SAN can improve an organization's storage infrastructure by providing high availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, performance, and ease of use."

"StarWind Virtual SAN is a very mature software that supersedes its capabilities with my use cases."

"Having support is also very valuable to us as we are a small team."

"The most important feature is the ability to experience the loss of one node or one storage device, and not lose the entire cluster."

"StarWind vSAN has allowed us to grow rapidly while still providing flexibility and reliability."

"It has improved our organization in terms of its uptime as our main cluster has never been offline due to a SAN failure."

"StarWind allows us to move virtual machines from one physical host to another, which greatly reduces the downtime required for maintenance."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series could improve by having better integration with the solutions from VMware and vCenter"

"There is a delay in the availability of similar versions of firmware from both the products, which are VMware and Nutanix for Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series, due to the delayed releases from both products, maybe by a quarter or so."

"Here in Nigeria, the only challenge that we have, which I think is also experienced globally is the delay in bringing in the spare parts. This is a challenge facing our country, such as the Forex market. However, this is beyond the control of Lenovo themselves."

"Scaling the product is fairly easy except for the computing aspect. It would entail another appliance. While not a show stopper, it isn't as easy as dropping in a few extra SSDs."

"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."

"I wish they would improve the documentation for the beginner level as it's not very clear on the web page."

"Ability to to test the virtual storage are network area and storage speed from StarWind Management Console."

"A web management interface would be good, especially for those coming from other solutions that have one."

"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."

"They need to improve the speed of the interfaces, thus allowing for better traffic on the network."

"Perhaps more reporting features on the utilization, usage, and performance of the configured high-availability images and underlying physical disks would be helpful."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When comparing this solution to other OEM solutions it is relatively inexpensive."

"Price-wise, it is a pretty good product. The product's price was one of the main criteria that made my company choose it over the other products in the market."

"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."

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

"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."

"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."

"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."

"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series?

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the product's deployment phase is pretty easy.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series?

Price-wise, it is a pretty good product. The product's price was one of the main criteria that made my company choose it over the other products in the market.

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series?

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?

I can't give a sincere opinion on the installation and licensing costs because, as I have mentioned repeatedly, I am currently using the free version. However, I can say that I have submitted a req...

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

More comprehensive reporting and educational resources for error resolution would enhance the user experience. There have been cases where not understanding exactly what's failing on the Virtual SA...

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Product Reports

HCI

Download Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series product report

StarWind Virtual SAN

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

Lenovo HX Series, ThinkAgile HX Series

StarWind SAN & NAS

Overview

Designed for easy deployment and manageability in scale-out clusters, the Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series combines Nutanix software with Lenovo’s highly reliable and scalable servers. These appliances ship fully integrated, tested, and configured so that you can dramatically accelerate your time to value and reduce your infrastructure maintenance.

Lenovo

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.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs. StarWind Virtual SAN