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NetApp HCI [EOL] vs VMware vSAN 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)
NetApp HCI [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

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.
EH
Nov 13, 2019
Ease of provisioning has allowed us to implement large installations in a very short time frame
There have been some drive type of issues where we have to apply a new code level. Storage nodes kick certain drives until they act as though they have failed when really they haven't. You just have to reinsert them, then they go on about their happy way. It is a bug fixed in 11.0 of the code for Element OS/Solidfire. The option to pull in a config/text file to be used as input to the NDE process; rather than going through a lot of screens. The manual effort there is error-prone. This something NetApp engineering has been made aware of as a request and they say they're looking at that as a future enhancement. As far as SolidFire, if you use the GUI, you can only create one line at a time or device at a time. That's ludicrous. I referenced earlier today to the NetApp feedback panel that this needs to be fixed. They said, "Yep. I understand that." In terms of bandwidth and IOPS along with availability - we have not managed this environment long enough to put TIER1 environments under this umbrella; yet don't see why it couldn't handle the aforementioned especially if you create dedicated pods for those 'heavy hitters' (I'll just call it that.) Thus, in time we'll look for more deployments upon the converged infrastructure of NetApp.
Lipaz Hessel - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 16, 2022
Expensive solution that requires professional services for installation and implementation
I'm still using a different solution. I only took two servers with vSAN to support one application that needs one feature that only VMware has. If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware. Now, I'm looking at products like Nutanix, Silver Peak, Flexione, and FortiGate. For products that I choose, I don't need a specialist of that vendor. In VMware, I need a specialist in VMware. That's the issue I have with VMware. It's not like I can take any IT person, and they will know what to do. I need to make sure he will do the call, get the certificate and time to practice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability."
"The most valuable features are high availability and real-time replication between two servers."
"Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us."
"In the three years that we have been using StarWind, the product has yet to cause us any problems."
"The ability to run a two-node cluster without a dedicated witness has made this an excellent product for small deployments, which is right on target for our needs in regional offices."
"The best feature is its ease of installation and integration within a current infrastructure."
"StarWind Virtual SAN offers high availability and data resilience features to prevent data loss if hardware fails."
"A typical system administrator with minimal experience in Hyper-V, VMware, or Windows can do VSAN configuration and maintain VSAN operations."
"It is scalable, and NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) makes its deployment easier."
"It has automated a lot of workloads. It has automated us from ticketing a large number to a very small number."
"HCI definitely improved how flexible we scale, and our entrance into the cloud. The features are very rich, in terms of both avenues. It's helped us flexibly move and shift our workloads around, back and forth."
"It is highly scalable. Their support is also extremely good."
"NetApp HCI is a stable solution."
"The solution integrates well with all the other applications that we use on our environment."
"In terms of helping us with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds, we do store data internally and in Azure. It has allowed us to consolidate a number of workloads, across our old NetApp and a number of our older storage arrays, into a single unit and have that unit also working with Azure."
"This is a strong product and it works very well, and the processes around it continue to grow and mature."
"Easy to deploy and manage."
"The most valuable features are its price point and that you can use existing storage; no specific storage requirements are needed."
"We have found the solution to be very scalable."
"You get the benefit of local storage, but you have the protection of shared storage."
"The product's initial setup phase was very straightforward."
"Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance."
"I think vSAN's stability is good. It's an underlying solution for both on-prem and in the cloud, especially the VMC on AWS stuff too. VMware has been around for a long time, so it's pretty stable."
"The most valuable features are the encryption, deduplication, compression, and the ability to manage all of your storage within your server rack."
 

Cons

"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
"There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA."
"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."
"If there was one feature I would like to see it would be a built-in subsystem for managing UPS backups shutdown procedures providing a way to initiate VM shutdown on all host servers, shut down the host servers, then put the fault-tolerant mirroring in standby, and finally shut down the StarWind SANs."
"I would like to see more advanced free versions."
"This solution should be more self-sufficient, running without creating domains or failover clusters."
"To improve the product, they should make it more flexible."
"I'd like to see some additional graphics capabilities because I'd like to look at some virtual desktop integration for CAD software."
"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."
"The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment."
"It would be great if they took something like kernel storage and integrated straight into the NetApp as well."
"Its stability is very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crash."
"I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."
"The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."
"I would like to see more support for applications. I think currently it only supports applications between two vSAN clusters."
"The platform's cost affects the business. This particular area needs improvement."
"I would like to be able to limit IOPS."
"The platform’s pricing needs improvement. Additionally, there should be an appliance module included in it."
"Better options would be clustered nodes, or even cloud configuration. There is room for improvement in cloud configuration, we typically do web browsing for management."
"The only thing that can be improved is the cost."
"If we have some complicated issues, you have to use the command lines interface. Not everything is possible to be fixed in the GUI. This is a drawback, that some things have to be fixed via command-line interface and should be able to be done in the GUI."
"I would like to see a little bit more documentation on the initial setup, and a little bit more explanation on the expandability: How to extend out your vSAN much more simply through the console because, a lot of the time, you have to do it through the command line."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."
"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."
"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."
"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."
"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
"Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."
"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."
"Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."
"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
"The licensing fees are renewed annually."
"Cost-wise, the Nutanix licenses were cheaper, but in terms of the hardware, there was some contention around it. So, in terms of implementation, the way Nutanix was projecting the implementation on their end was that there were a lot of open-source admin platforms. vSAN is a licensed product in VMware, and Nutanix was proposing a KVM solution, which is open source. That's why their pricing was a bit cheaper, but when we were trying to compare it with an enterprise version of their management platform, it boiled down to the VMware vSAN being most effective in the long run."
"The licenses are very expensive. The renewal of licenses has extra costs attached to it."
"VMware vSAN is a little bit expensive and we pay annually. We have an educational institute where we receive discount prices from VMware. We do receive a reasonable discount but it's still expensive."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap."
"The current pricing needs to meet the customers' expectations, posing significant issues."
"The price of vSAN could be lower."
"Its price could be improved."
"This solution is expensive. Nutanix provides us with Acropolis Operating System (AOS) along with its hardware, while VMware provides vSAN, vCenter, and vSphere which all have separate licenses and costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
51%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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...
Ask a question
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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 e...
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 interfa...
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...
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: November 2024.
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