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StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs VxRail 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

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)
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 1.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 9.6%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VxRail9.6%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library1.8%
Other88.6%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

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
John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Automation has streamlined lifecycle management and improved ongoing operational efficiency
For the first three years, I have a combo pricing policy. For the fourth year and fifth year, I have to buy separately for the licensing from VMware and from VxRail, so I think the combo cost for the fourth and fifth year is huge and does not make sense. Due to the pricing policy, I would not like to see additional functionalities at this time as it is not in my strategy. I would rate VxRail an eight out of ten because of the pricing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."
"Dell VxRail is flexible and reliable and scalable; it is cost-effective, easy to install as a plug-and-play hyper-converged infrastructure, and easy to restore without the higher cost."
"It's somewhat hard to speak about specific features, but I like VxRail's simplicity and ease of use. It's a decent solution for customers with a small footprint. If you're operating a big data center, it's not easy to position VxRail or HCI solutions, but when you have a small customer managing many different components, it's easier to work only with one solution."
"From my previous experience, and because I work with a wide range of technical engineers, compared to other products, this solution offers a solid hardware performance."
"With VxRail, we can manage the life cycle of a virtual machine."
"The implementation was quick, we used a checklist and it took approximately one hour."
"We have seen a return on the investment due to how easy this solution is to use and the time it frees up for our staff."
"The initial setup was not complex."
 

Cons

"In practice, it is somewhat technical to deploy and manage, but overall it gets the job done."
"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 solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"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 initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"The way that the VxRail is licensed could be improved."
"We believe Dell's vShpere support falls short of the mark."
"The present SaaS model license structure can be improved."
"I would like it if there were tools that provided the billing costs; in short, I would prefer it if each cell had a tool geared toward billing clients."
"I would like to see more solutions for satellite capabilities where we can put it into smaller locations and still have the redundancy that we have with a larger cluster."
"The upgrade packages require a lot of bandwidth. This could be reduced for an improved experience."
"The fact that is based on vSAN is the main issue of this solution."
"VxRail is a closed system with an out-of-the -box solution approach, it has basic 3 layers, Hardware, Network, Storage, Software, (Virtualizing) Applications. Release notes and improvement tips, patches from the back office, the business units, should be frequent and up to the patches which are coming from different vendors as far as the operating system application and also the technology itself is concerned."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cost-effective."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"VxRail is quite expensive and could be cheaper. I would say that the main difference between VxRail and the competition is cost. There may be some differences in features, but I would say that it's mainly the costs."
"The VMware licenses are included and we do not have to worry about the license, everything is integrated."
"Fees vary by license type."
"The price could be lower."
"At about $200,000, this solution is a little bit pricey but it is more economical than others such as Nutanix or Cisco Hyperflex."
"The solution is very expensive."
"It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."
"It is just as cheap to move over to an HCI solution as it is to maintain a legacy system."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

No data available
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.