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Dell XC Appliance vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

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 XC Appliance
Ranking in HCI
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in HCI
26th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell XC Appliance is 1.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 1.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell XC Appliance1.7%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library1.8%
Other96.5%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Enables seamless integration with multiple software and outstanding AI tools
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it. I find it overly reliant on VMware. In cases of company mergers involving different platforms, software that can handle a multi-hypervisor environment would facilitate quicker integration.
reviewer1414572 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
Flexible and reliable with helpful support
I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster. Who would not like things to be faster? It would be nice if StarWind could come up with a best practice document for configuration. I had to do some playing around in my environment with test runs to get the configuration that really allowed for the maximum amount of throughput that I was going to get with the software. Once I had figured out what worked best, the solution was rather fast for backing up 30+ TB of data

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's hardware is great."
"The most valuable feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly."
"When we compare it to normal hardware servers, I'd say it is quite easy to configure and deploy."
"Overall, the Dell XC Appliance is a very good product."
"The most valuable feature is the low management overhead, and the lower skill set required to manage it."
"The solution's best feature is its simplicity."
"To other customers who are looking to implement Dell XC, it's a very good hyper-converged solution."
"The stability of the product is pretty good, as there have been no bugs, glitches, or crashes that I'm aware of."
"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."
"The support that they provide is excellent, with 24 hours a day seven days a week support, and all the engineers and the support staff know the solution very well."
"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"We simply replicate our backups from Veeam to the virtual tape library that StarWind implements, while magically transporting those to B2 for our offsite backup requirements."
"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."
"It is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster."
"The solution's storage size could be improved."
"The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"To improve this product, I think there is a lot of work that is required by Dell to simplify the maintenance and life cycle upgrades."
"There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution."
"We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date."
"The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it."
"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"In practice, it is somewhat technical to deploy and manage, but overall it gets the job done."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"The price point is very fair for a product in this category but can vary depending on the components selected within the family of products."
"The pricing is dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components."
"The pricing is good."
"We received a good price from Dell."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering Dell XC Appliance?
My advice for people who are selling this product is to first make sure that you educate the customers. The customer doesn't often know much about HCI and what the need to be using it for. If they ...
What needs improvement with Dell XC Appliance?
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's applian...
What is your primary use case for Dell XC Appliance?
Dell offers several benefits with its appliances. Primarily, I can combine them horizontally and vertically, reaching up to sixty-four nodes. Additionally, Dell employs its own artificial intellige...
Ask a question
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cardlytics, AEW Energie, Aubert, Zhongtong Information Service, Commune de Villepinte, Teikyo University Hospital
Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XC Appliance vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.