VMware vSAN and VxRail are both highly regarded for enhancing virtual infrastructure efficiency and integration with VMware environments, with vSAN notably excelling in storage management and VxRail in operational efficiency through automation and seamless scalability. Both solutions present a potent return on investment and customer service, with users appreciating the substantial benefits in operational efficiency and support, despite some desires for more flexible pricing and easier navigation of support resources.
The summary above is based on 39 interviews we conducted recently with VMware vSAN and VxRail users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"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."
"Without the need for any downtime, enterprises can simply grow their storage infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN by adding new servers or disks to the current infrastructure."
"Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us."
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"We can lose a site or even two of our three, and we would lose no data and have no outage."
"A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic."
"Active-active HA provides top performance and redundancy."
"The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution."
"It scales well. We have plenty of room to grow."
"Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance."
"The most valuable features are ease of deployment, and ease of management. If you compare it to other software-defined storage products, it's much easier. It's a checkbox. It's lot easier to manage."
"vSAN is easy for deploying and maintenance, so some customers can do service themselves."
"We've found the solution to be scalable."
"Storage policies are used to perform operations in the VMs. This feature allows you to create storage policies for VMs to get performance, high availability, I/O policies, etc."
"Being hyperconverged, it simplifies what equipment we have to buy."
"The most valuable feature is the fast performance."
"The implementation was quick, we used a checklist and it took approximately one hour."
"The support has been excellent, especially if you compare it to IBM."
"VxRail does not require fiber switches or external storage. It's easy to replace and manage. It's centralized management through VxRail Manager."
"The assurance that my systems would not suffer a performance drop no matter where they are is valuable. I do not need any extra hardware."
"It is the most valuable Software Defined Storage ever to manage all storage workloads, and also offers high availability."
"This is a good solution for medium-sized installations especially when it will be coupled with VMware."
"The initial setup is simple."
"It's a turnkey solution, which is good for customers, because they are buying into stability."
"While we had little to no issues in setting up StarWind and received excellent support from the StarWind technicians, we would have appreciated a clearer guideline for a setup with the free version of StarWind Management Console or, in other words - for the setup with the PowerShell."
"Having more support plan options would be nice."
"They need to improve the speed of the interfaces, thus allowing for better traffic on the network."
"StarWind Virtual SAN could benefit from better integration with other tools and technologies, such as backup and disaster recovery solutions."
"Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items."
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
"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."
"The initial setup got a little confusing at a few points with differences between the VMware version in documentation vs the latest, etc."
"Hardware load balancing is available on the enterprise version of the solution, however, it's extremely expensive and therefore out of our budget."
"The UI could certainly be better. The inside into what's actually going on with vSAN would be nice to know."
"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 usability is pretty good but it could use a little tweaking on the UI, with a clearer definition of exactly what some of the things do."
"I lose a node in a cluster vSAN, which is also used as a cluster HA. I lose not only the storage part, which is not necessarily serious (depending on the configuration of the vSAN cluster), but on the other hand, I lose also a node of Compute, which can make things complicated quickly."
"The customer service is good but there is a cost for it. It does not come free."
"The product's high price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Reporting currently depends on third party applications and that could be improved."
"The licensing is a bit too costly."
"The way that the VxRail is licensed could be improved."
"The initial setup is very complex."
"The only issue which is every now and again is that when you log in it will tell you that there's an issue with VxRail when there actually isn't. All that's required is a refresh or reload. The solution itself works but you may get some bad reports every now and again. Probably once every couple of months; there is no effect to the solution's capabilities."
"I would like it to tier to the cloud effectively, making sure that cold data can be pushed out to some sort of Bitbucket."
"When it comes to maintenance, it takes 16 hours to upgrade a 12 node VxRail plus. This could be improved in the system."
"You cannot install another operating system such as Microsoft or Hyperflex or Nutanix. We have also had a hardware problem."
"Sometimes during the upgrade process of VxRail, we experience errors that have nothing to do with reality and I cannot troubleshoot them without calling Dell and bringing in an engineer to figure it out."
VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 227 reviews while VxRail is ranked 1st in HCI with 120 reviews. VMware vSAN is rated 8.4, while VxRail is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VxRail writes "Offers a hassle-free, complete package, and is energy-efficient". VMware vSAN is most compared with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage, Dell PowerFlex and Pure Storage FlashArray, whereas VxRail is most compared with Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), HPE Hyper Converged and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. See our VMware vSAN vs. VxRail report.
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In case of Dell EMC nodes, the only difference is setting up vSAN by yourself or pay someone else to set it up for you. In VxRail, you get licenses which are OEM locked that means you can not use those licenses on any other hardware. In VMware vSAN ready nodes, you can pick the hardware of your choice (from VMware HCL) and start building your vSAN cluster and all of the servers from different vendors work in the same cluster. In VxRail, you pay for the solution plus vSphere licenses based on your requirement. In VMware vSAN ready nodes, you pay for all the licenses separate from the hardware cost like, vCenter Server, vSphere, vSAN. for remote sites or very small setups you can use ROBO licenses in VMware vSAN ready nodes where this multi vendor thing can be very useful. From my experience, if the customer has 2-3 years old hardware, most of the times the hardware is good to be converted to an VMware vSAN ready node by making few or no changes.
VxRail is a solution that includes vSAN between their components... So VxRail is like a bundle with hardware and software components to deploy hyper-converged solution in very short time without pain.... vSAN is only a software solution that could be deploy in any hardware with enough processing and storage power... thath can be integrated with other components manually or semi automated way... VxRail includes other great components like RecoveryPoint for VM, an excellent DR/BCP solution... If you want an integrated HCI easy to deploy, manage and maintain... VxRail is the best solution
VxRail is a Turnkey solution from Dell EMC that uses VMware vSAN as the underlying storage technology
The main differences are:
vSAN can Run on any ReadyNode and can differ in the vendor, while VxRail only uses Dell Servers (PowerEdge) I do know that there other products that use CISCO (VxBlock, VXFLEX)
vSAN Requires a vSAN Licence and is renewed yearly (Or whatever your VMware Agreement is) VxRail vSAN Licences are Perpertual.
Patching and install on VxRail are simple and Dell EMC Check the updates before its generally available so the quality control is good. This is good as a bad/incompatible firmware can really cause issues with vSAN , all patching and firmware will need to be vetted and installed by yourself.
VxRail locks you into a Dell Solution. Where as with vSAN you can choose the Hardware you want.
VxRAIL is a pre buid HCI solution, with optimised configuration ready to deploy
also Vmware software VSAN and Vcenter are bundled with better prices and other bundled software
If you want to have an optimized and integrated software environment with integrated VSAN-in-Kernel into an appliance, a streamlined deployment experience, and single-vendor support go with VxRail because Dell EMC and VMware jointly developed the VxRail system powered by VMware vSAN software-defined storage. VxRail Manager is the sole and primary source for VxRail lifecycle management, cluster compatibility, software updates, and version control.
VxRail Manager further reduces operational complexity and provides software upgrade automation. Hence, VxRail is the simplest and easiest path to ready HCI and Hybrid Cloud.
VSAN is hardware agnostic but should need to have hardware/component level VSAN certifications. vSAN is enterprise-class, storage virtualization software that, when combined with vSphere, allows you to manage to compute and storage with a single platform. With vSAN, you can reduce the cost and complexity of traditional storage and have Software-Defined Storage in place but without integration with some appliance and always need to have VSA in place to bridge the communication between/among VMs and IO.
Thanks
Sufyan Ali Khan
+923018224536
The hardware hosting the solution. Vxrail is an engineered appliance from Dell to host vSAN.
In addition vSAN can be installed on any hardware that meets its requirements
When someone ask biggest, smallest, etc., they need simple answer :D VxRail is easy, while vSAN is complex. VxRail is prebuilt: easy to deploy, easy to scale out, one support contact for everything. VmWare vSAN is just an Software Defined Storage. Complex to deploy, complex to scale up/ out, and need several contact support for the whole solution.
Technically, it is hard to differentiate between two solutions.
As DellEMC is in the position of proposing two solutions at the same time, it really depends on the customer situation.
If the customer has favor on VMware and good experience of it, then VSAN would be better.
If the customer has an experience of Cisco or HP’s HCI solution, then Dell EMC will propose VxRAIL rather than VSAN.