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Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs NetApp HCI [EOL] 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

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
HCI (10th)
NetApp HCI [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

HH
Systems Engineer at First Rand Bank Ltd.
Virtual environment achieves seamless management and reduces downtime through improved fault tolerance
With regards to storage area networks versus virtual SAN, vSAN is better off. It is much faster because the disk is within, utilizing NVMe type disks running SSD for the OS and capacity, making it easier to expand storage. It is stable, and similar to any issues on a standalone machine, there's resilience; if we lose one host, data will not be lost because of the technology on vSAN that allows us to free up that host into maintenance mode without issues. The benefit of using vSAN is that it's easy to manage on vCenter. You can see if there are issues, get recommendations, and overall, it's highly fault-free which is beneficial because we want to minimize downtime. Operationally, we perform well enough during the week; the only time we are highly operational on vSAN is when we do switch upgrades on the MX7000 switches and firmware, which we schedule outside of business hours.
MB
Chief Information Officer at Lucart S.p.A.
Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022
Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was 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 crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool's most valuable features are compression and its usage in Kubernetes."
"vSAN ReadyNodes offer easy scalability, which has proven beneficial for storage needs."
"You don't have to spend much time evaluating the hardware. It can be deployed in a short time. The tool is also easy to upgrade."
"The cost is higher compared to non-Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, but when compared with external storage solutions, there are significant benefits."
"No concerns regarding the footprint in the data center."
"The most valuable feature of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is file sharing."
"It is easy to install."
"Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes is scalable"
"When it comes to DevOps, HCI has saved our organization time and money, especially with the number of resources that we have cut down."
"The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained."
"The most valuable feature, currently, is the density of the system as hardware. I'm able to leverage the density of the product and remove bigger hardware which requires more space, cooling, and power costs, obviously. There are cost savings, obviously."
"It allows me to move a VM set and require extra performance. I can easily move them onto it and have it just run."
"The initial setup was straightforward; it was easy and fast to deploy, and NetApp Cloud Manager made getting up and running with Cloud ONTAP amazing, easy to use, simple, and it basically did everything."
"The ease of deployment is a positive feature that allows us to scale easily."
"HCI definitely improved how flexible we scale, and our entrance into the cloud."
"The NetApp Deployment Engine that comes with it makes the actual deployment and usage very easy. That's our primary focus and it's hyper-converged. That's something that we want to use as well."
 

Cons

"We have experienced some issues with performance."
"Although vSAN ReadyNodes work well, a faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes could be lowered."
"When comparing Dell VxRail and Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes, I have found that when managing and expanding Dell VxRail is much better."
"I think the upgrades could be improved. If you compare it to other HCI solutions, like VxRail, the upgrade process is fully automated whereas on vSAN ReadyNodes it's a bit complicated and we have to do it manually."
"Currently, it's like a black box that only Dell technical support knows how to handle."
"Upgrades are carried out manually."
"The Dell VxRail solution is based on vSAN Ready Nodes, but the Dell VxRail is fully automated. It would be helpful if this automation feature could be added to the Dell vSAN Ready Nodes. For example, we need to install VMware ESXi, and manually expand the cluster."
"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's sort of a bug."
"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."
"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."
"I would like to see higher level graphics support because we are going to be doing some virtual desktop for our CAD software, and I want to be able to support AutoCAD and Cantillo on remote desktop machines."
"The reason I give it a nine instead of a ten is because of the need for pre-check work. While it is simpler than most products, there is still a lot of configuration that needs to be done."
"There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management."
"The networking needs improvement."
"The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is more expensive than a traditional array. The prices are skyrocketing."
"We have a four-year contract to use Dell EMC vSAN Ready Nodes."
"My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the solution. The solution is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is competitive compared to others. The tool's licensing is based on annual subscriptions."
"Comparing the price of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes to other solutions it is not expensive."
"There is a problem, which is the lack of an integrated price structure."
"The price of the solution was reasonable."
"The licensing fees are renewed annually."
"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."
"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."
"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 aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Government
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
There is no specific licensing model for vSAN ReadyNodes as it is linked with Broadcom VMware's solutions rather than Dell's. As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to...
What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
I would want VMware to ensure that when there's a hardware failure on a host, it should gracefully migrate the VMs to another host available in the cluster without restarting, which would be a grea...
What is your primary use case for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
I am familiar with VMware Workstation, but we don't actually use a workstation. We only use ESXi because we're running a big organization. We have people that are responsible for a Citrix farm that...
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Also Known As

vSAN Ready Nodes
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace
American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI. Updated: June 2026.
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