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HPE Hyper Converged vs StarWind Virtual SAN 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

HPE Hyper Converged
Ranking in HCI
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 2.5%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN2.3%
HPE Hyper Converged2.5%
Other95.2%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

GosayeErko - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at BIOS Engineering
Infrastructure management simplifies for clients with integrated interface and enhanced resource utilization
Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and most clients are skipping VMware because VMware has changed its licensing method. If HPE starts to use its own hypervisor for its HCI solutions, it will be the best solution. We push a different vendor for the backup and replication, so we only use the HCI, then we use Veeam for the backup and replication section.
Jccerong Heron - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs
The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a very complete product with residencies to protect data and secure it end-to-end. It includes storage, computing, and networking, offering a fully ten-key solution."
"The features I've found most valuable are manageability, integrated backup solution SimpliVity, and deep integration."
"Hyper Converged is highly stable because it's installed on our VMware platform."
"The solution has good backup resolution updates."
"The hyper-converged system is easy to set up."
"The solution has many good features."
"I would say that this solution is good depending on your needs and on budget."
"If you were comparing this solution to VMware, it has more features, and it's very fast on the recovery."
"This product now allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN."
"PowerShell library is pretty good feature as I created with APC PowerChute a script to put volumes on maintenance mode then turning off the StarWind nodes together with the VM and Hosts when UPS reaches 15 percent, this way after a blackout or electrical problems when turning servers on again, there is no issues for syncing or data loss due to energy interrupts."
"StarWind allowed us to deploy SSD storage with very high availability at a good price at a time where all other vendors were pushing huge premiums on SSDs."
"StarWind's proactive support has helped my organization by giving us the reassurance of 24/7 monitoring of the platform, so even outside of business hours, if something happens, StarWind engineers are able to troubleshoot the problem and look at things for us, which provides an extra level of reassurance."
"The best feature that StarWind Virtual SAN offers is clustering without buying the SAN."
"Starwind support was extremely helpful throughout the entire process, from the trial period to the actual production implementation."
"Ease of installation, configuration, and management."
"In the three years that we have been using StarWind, the product has yet to cause us any problems."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved. It's quite an expensive solution."
"I would like to see more deduplication."
"Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and many clients are skipping VMware due to its changed licensing method."
"Scalability is an issue because it becomes very expensive. When you need to upgrade memory, you have to upgrade memory across the nodes. Suppose a customer has gone with a three-node HCI solution, then to increase the memory, you have to do it across the three nodes."
"In my country, the biggest issue is probably pricing."
"The solution's pricing for the hardware and support could be reduced."
"The storage efficiency is weak and needs to be improved."
"I think that OneView should be replaced by something else for the management."
"Scalability should be further improved, especially considering the possibility that environments may grow exponentially."
"I am expecting to see it more user-friendly in the future."
"Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date."
"For improvement, I would like to see how the software determines which networks to use for which purpose. It seems like the naming terminology changes a bit from here to there."
"StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used."
"The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation."
"At this moment, I have not seen a return on investment with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed."
"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."
"I would rate the price at seven out of ten. There are no additional licensing fees, but it would be cheaper to go with a dHCI solution."
"The price per value compared to other solutions, like Nutanix and SimpliVity. (We made the deal before approval of HPE SimpliVity deal)."
"There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"If I'm comparing with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience."
"The solution is expensive - not only the hardware costs but server costs too. And the more you scale, the more expensive it gets."
"Pricing with Dell EMC is double the price which I paid for HPE. However, in the end, Dell EMC is double in performance. This is not an apple to apple comparison though, as I have a four node from Dell EMC and a three node."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
"The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business170
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?
The product is intermediate in price, neither expensive nor cheap. We are talking about an on-premises solution without licensing for years. Currently, licensing is required for VMs and CPU cores. ...
What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?
The initial setup of HPE Hyper Converged requires study and a comprehensive understanding of virtualization. The second step is to follow instructions step by step, as it can be complex to understa...
What is your primary use case for HPE Hyper Converged?
I have several years of experience in storage area network and IT infrastructure, working with Pure Secure, Pure Secure Storage, EMC Square, HP, and Lenovo storage and other brands, several other b...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for StarWind Virtual SAN is very simple; that is another good thing about it, as the pricing is really straightforward. I got a quote, and it w...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
StarWind Virtual SAN has latency that is not as good versus VMware vSAN, but I believe it is more of a Hyper-V limitation than it is StarWind Virtual SAN; it is not bad enough to be an issue, but i...
What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is that it replaced our VMware vSAN. I transitioned from VMware vSAN to StarWind Virtual SAN due to the dramatic increase in VMware licensing costs followi...
 

Also Known As

HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Hyper Converged vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.