DataCore SANsymphony Reviews

SANsymphony is a software solution that enables storage virtualization.

We implemented SANsymphony due to its mirroring and continuous data protection features.

The installation is done independently of the hardware and even allows infrastructures in synchronous replication in active/active with different manufacturers.

The data is identical and accessible on both storage nodes. The solution also allows you to create a Disaster Recovery Site with an asynchronous and bidirectional mirror that is easier to test.

This solution allows us to have a business continuity plan for storage and as a first level of backup.

This solution allows us to have our IT production in two separate and autonomous rooms in active/active mode. The data is present in both rooms. In the event of scheduled shutdowns (works, updates, etc.) or incidents, the changeover is done manually or automatically.

The Continuous Data Protection feature and the logging of data changes allows a minimal level of data loss on incidents, human errors, or cyberattacks. This functionality makes it possible to restore the data to the moment before loss.

The synchronous mirroring is great. Storage is always available. This is the main feature of DataCore SANsymphony SDS which allows very high storage availability and better protection against environmental incidents (electrical, flooding, etc.).

Continuous data protection reduces data loss. This functionality makes it possible to restore the data to the moment before loss.

Caching and parallel I/O offer more performance. The cache is done with the RAM of the server. To add cache you just have to add RAM.

The parallelization of the IOs allows us to have much better performance with the same hardware by accelerating the processing of the IOs.

The compression and deduplication are now suitable for a production environment. Additionally, this allows us to use logical RAID for NVMe drives in ZFS clusters.

The architecture has been revised with cache and metadata disks to improve overall performance.

The graphical interface is not always very stable. In a dense infrastructure with many volumes and disks, slowness and GUI crashes can be observed. Developments are still underway to continually improve this part.

The current graphical interface is ported to a web interface and not all features are available yet.

The eagerly awaited feature is tiering between deduplicated/compressed disk pools and performance pools. This will leave the possibility of activating by virtual disk the automatic movement of blocks according to their activity.

I've been using this solution since 2008.

I have been using this solution for over a decade and it is very stable.

The solution is highly scalable by adding disks or nodes.

Technical support is awesome and very reactive.

Positive

We used Dell/EMC, VNX, and UNITY. We switched due to vendor lock-in, overpriced drives, or upgrades.

The initial setup is very simple as there are many wizards.

We handled the implementation in-house.

You get to ROI quickly by reusing material.

Users need to remember that they just need to buy what they use.

We evaluated VMware vSAN.

The support team is awesome.

I work with many customers that ask us to put their solution near the production because they can't stop the production. It's easier to protect the network this way.

It has helped my customers because it's an SDS solution, and we can use all components that you put in a server. You have many options that meet customer needs, and you can find the best way in relation to performance and price. 

It's a software storage solution that can scale as we like. There is also has a parallel feature that enhances the performance of the storage solution. We can separate storage and computing, and we can scale these two parts of the platform to meet business needs efficiently.

The most important thing is the work we do on the new management interface called DIS. You can follow the evolution of this platform, and it's very important for me because the customer has to manage the platform. 

We add the workload on this platform, and they need the platform to evolve. It's very important to the customer, and we have to work on the DIS to realize the customer's this vision.

Problem detection could be easier. It should help customers identify problems very quickly because it's not easy to analyze on the platform today.

I have been using DataCore SANsymphony SDS for about six years.

DataCore SANsymphony SDS is a very robust and stable solution.

Technical support is very good. For example, their system engineer came down to help my customer resolve a problem.

I can't say that the installation is difficult, but it's impossible for a customer who doesn't know the product or the installation process. You will need the help of a consultant or a reseller to install and deploy this solution.

This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give DataCore SANsymphony SDS a ten.

I run two servers with DataCore doing what it does. I then run VMware on top of that for my Window servers. I currently have roughly 50 users that are constantly using the various servers.

DataCore gave us speed, redundancy, reliability, and works great with our backup system.

It is easy to create storage and assign them to the various datastores in my VMware environment.

Installing updates could be a bit more straightforward and easier to install. I have only installed one update on the systems, and for that, I had to bring in outside help that was more knowledgeable with the product than I currently am. He also had to contact DataCore support for assistance as the update did not go smooth. I also did Windows updates at this same time as it was strongly suggested to me not to do the Windows updates as they are released. The Windows updates were installed with no problems and caused no problems to the system.

Very pleased. This system should last me for another five years. That is my hope.

I only run two systems, and I have not had any problems. Nor have I needed to add additional hard drives, but I have been informed that they can be added as needed. I have talked with other DataCore users in my area that have hundreds of terabytes, and they are very happy with the scalability.

I have only needed to contact them once, and they were quick to assist. Excellent support was provided locally and directly from DataCore.

No. This is my first time using software-defined storage.

I had to bring in outside support as I was not familiar with the setup. I believe it took about two days to set everything up.

Vendor team did the setup, and the individual that did the setup was a complete professional. I will continue to use this same individual.

I'm sorry, I don't know this.

I had the vendor that sold me the software and hardware assist with setting up the systems. I also paid for three years of support at the same time when I purchased the software. Again, I found it affordable.

I did look at using VSAN from VMware, but that was going to be more money, hardware, and time involved to implement.

As a side note, I use Veeam to backup my servers, including the DataCore servers, and I have had no problem doing so.

We're using SANsymphnony for our primary storage in a HA environment for sensitive production data. Storage nodes are HPE servers with SSD drives in them. They serve storage to two servers blades enclosures in a Fibre Channel storage network. We have a total of 50TB in a mirror. 16 servers use this storage in a VMware vSphere environment.

This infrastructure has run without any issues since 2017 and we update it twice a year.

Before that, we had other SANsymphony infrastructure running on an old HMP MSA storage array. We migrated without any interruption.

DataCore SANsymphony brings the ability to work on almost every hardware platform and to build a storage node with high precision (disks, interfaces, protocols). We can choose what hardware we want to put in and it brings a high-performance throughput from it. The ability to build exactly what you need is a major advantage of SANsymphony over other solutions.

Hardware maintenance is easy since it is a simple server. There's no need for a storage hardware expert. On top of that, the Software-Defined Storage is easy to manage.

We used the wizard to deploy SANsymphony in a virtual environment for hyper-converged infrastructure and it is quite useful. We can deploy virtual high-available infrastructure for running tests in less than an hour.

Continuous data protection is a powerful feature that can save your data in several cases. It is good protection against ransomware.

The ability to use the RAM of the server node as a read and write cache brings a lot of performance to the storage. We can reach high IOPS from slow disks through the huge amount of cache.

The documentation repository is really useful and kept updated.

We would like to see a real "sexy" storage dashboard with capacity, usage, performance, and error tracking.

The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors. We are far from an HPE Infosight, for example.

Using a classic storage array constructor allows clients to have a single point of contact in case of an issue. With DataCore, we have to deal with them for the software part and with the hardware vendor for the hardware part. Sometimes, in a complex environment, we have to deal with storage array vendors, servers vendors, and software vendors and that can be exhausting.

We've been using SANsymphony for almost 10 years now. We followed all of its great evolution so far.

This solution is stable. Depending on the two rooms' interconnection, we have to deal with redundancy and maybe a witness. Losing the connection completely between the nodes can lead to a complete rebuild of a side.

The scalability is almost infinite. I cannot think of a more scalable solution.

The customer service is quick and efficient. Sometimes we have to deal with some trivial questions but that seems to be the basis of every support query right now.

We previously used an HPE 3PAR storage array. We switched to have more performance and more flexibility. The maintenance is quite easier too.

The initial setup is easy via the use of a comprehensible wizard.

We implemented the solution ourselves after a formation from the vendor.

The ROI is high as we can change or update hardware without changing our licencing. 

The main work in building a SANsymphony solution is to design and select the correct hardware parts. The setup is quite easy and the configuration is too.

The licensing is by terabyte and can be quite expensive. 

We evaluated other hardware vendors but stuck to a software-defined solution.

VMware VSAN was not mature enough for us and we did not want to use a hardware vendor solution.

You must keep in mind that you'll have to qualify the hardware you use with SANsymphony compatibility.

DataCore is the primary storage solution for all of our VMware hosts, installed on a Dell EMC RX740 server with a combination of spinning and NVMe storage. We have just moved to a 2-host, hyperconverged solution utilizing DataCore. All of our servers and services are running off the 2-node DataCore solution.

DataCore has helped provide flexible, highly available, high-performance storage that otherwise would have been outside our price range.

The most valuable feature is auto-tiering, which allows for storage pools containing different speed storage systems and the data automatically moved to the most appropriate pool.

The cost is becoming prohibitive since they moved to a subscription model.  'Education' pricing is such in name only (we are a school).

When we originally purchased Datacore (in 2014) it was on a perpetual basis and provided exceptional value for money. We have renewed our DataCore solution this year, in 2019, and have found that DataCore has moved to a subscription model. Not only was the initial licensing far higher than previously, partly due to additional storage requirements but also because we can no longer acquire a 'limited' license and we also find we now have a large subscription to pay each year.

DataCore has been incredibly stable in the last six years that we've been using it, with zero downtime due to a failure in the DataCore component.

DataCore gives me the impression that it is hugely scalable. We currently use it on a tiny scale of two nodes, but this would be expandable to many many more.

DataCore support has always been top-notch whenever we've called on their services, although this has admittedly been rarely due to the stability of the product.

Previously we had local storage on separate physical servers. DataCore seemed the ideal solution for our vSAN when moving to a virtualized environment in VMware.

The initial setup of a conventional vSAN is straightforward.

Our recent setup of a two-node hyperconverged solution was a little more complicated, though this was mainly due to the Dell servers we had ordered as hosts, rather than DataCore itself. The DataCore consultants setting up the solution were very knowledgable and it was completed without too much trouble.

Our solution was implemented through a DataCore specialist, external contractor, who helped configure the whole solution.

When we initially purchased DataCore, it was extremely cost-effective with a perpetual license. They have since moved to a subscription model, which may prove too expensive for us in the future.

Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing.

DataCore appeared to be the most suitable, best-value solution at the time and as such, we did not evaluate other alternatives.

We use this product as a storage network.

The performance is good.

The interface is user-friendly.

I would like to see reporting added, such as a monthly connectivity report. Things like performance and usage can be shown.

It would be helpful to have better monitoring tools.

I have been using DataCore SANsymphony for 11 years.

The stability is perfect.

Scalability is good and it is important for us. I am working in an industry where most of the installations are long-term. Over time, we have to add devices to the solution.

We have two sites, each with about 1,000 people who are using it.

The technical support is perfect.

Pricing has improved but it is still expensive. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

My advice to anybody who is considering SANSymphony is that it is flexible, user-friendly, and a product that I recommend.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use the DataCore software to provide (virtual) storage hardware to our virtualisation environment (VMware ESX).

• SANsymphony gives us the possibility to get storage redundancy with a very good ROI.
• It also helps us to get a more balanced performance of our storage systems.

• Redundancy of vdisk: It provides less downtime.
• Continuous data protection: It is always good to have a possibility to "go back".
• Technical support: Technical support is amazing. It is very fast and always has a solution in no time.

• It will help if there is a possibility to backup the vdisks directly.
• An idea could be that there is a second storage just for backup which doesn't count to the license usage.
• A better (and easier) tool to detect performance issues.

With SANsymphony we never had any issues of stability.

It is very scalable because you can just extend the storage with other (different) hardware. There is a lot of certified storage hardware. Also, the tier level helps to scale.

Fast, faster, DataCore support.

They are also kind and solution-oriented. They are easy to understand, and you have the feeling they want to help you and get you satisfied.

No, we have only used DataCore SANsymphony as SDS.

The setup was done by our IT partner. It is complex because he also had to set up our iSCSI environment. With Fibre Channel it would be much easier.

Our IT partner started the initial installation. We implemented it in our environment.
The partner had very good expertise.

We didn't calculate the ROI.

We have not calculated the ROI of the software. Only the benefits in redundancy and scalability were important for us.

The licensing is very easy to understand/calculate since the new license model. You just have to license the storage and additional features.

No.

The installation is only supported if it is installed by a DataCore certified implementation engineer. Also, updates should be done by this DCIE.

If you want to manage everything by yourself, you have to get a DCIE.

We use DataCore to improve the redundancy of our virtual machines so that we can achieve high availability of our server systems.

We are now able to run a hot standby solution for our virtual systems with separated server rooms (in case of fire), and so we can minimize downtimes of our IT infrastructure.

• High availability of storage
• Stability and performance
• Fast implementation and integration.

Installation time was about one day. Since then, it runs stable.

The product runs stable in the background and does what it should do, so I don't have any special issues at the moment, but increasing performance and improving the user interface for easier setup is always a good idea.

It runs fast and stable.

Since its installation, we had no problems.

In our actual environment it runs stable and fast, and about scalability, I can not (yet) say anything, sorry.

To be honest, we did not need the support until now.

No, we did not.

We installed it through our IT partner. Installation time took around one day.

Installed by our standard IT partner.

Expert level I think.

Increased high availability.

The product was installed by our IT partner in one day, so the installation cost is OK.

Pricing and licensing was also fair.

The product was offered by our system integrator, they had installed it several times for other customers without problems, so we trusted them and they were right.

Maybe using a good IT partner who already has some experience with the product.