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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
24th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (20th)
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 1.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 9.3%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VxRail9.3%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library1.8%
Other88.9%
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
AO
Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Streamlines resource management through centralized automation and automatic upgrades
The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN. It provides a unified way to access these resources, making management straightforward. Another benefit is the fully automated upgrade process, which is completed with just one click through the VxRail Manager. This centralization and automation enhance efficiency significantly.

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."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"If you're looking for simplification of operations, this is a great solution to implement."
"The simplicity and manageability of VxRail are most valuable, we have a very good experience with this product, and its stability and scalability are also very good."
"This is a good solution if you want to deploy an ACI Environment but don't have all the necessary resources."
"I have found VxRail software can scale very well."
"We have used other solutions in the past like Nutanix and SimpliVity but VxRail definitely has more advantages."
"The most valuable aspect on VxRail is the one-click update where they are doing the updates all at once for the drivers, buyers, ID reg, and for the VMS."
"If you're providing a platform that has consolidated compute, storage, and fabric, then it's basically a turnkey type of solution that organizations can use."
"I can roll out the system in thirty minutes and the customer can work with it."
 

Cons

"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"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 initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"This solution needs to have the capability where even older versions of hardware can be seamlessly utilized and additional expansion becomes so much easier."
"While VxRail offers compatibility with AMD processors, its capabilities in this area could benefit from further development."
"The software that comes on VxRail doesn't work smoothly because they have problems with updates."
"This is an expensive product and that should be considered a point to be improved."
"As I said, one place for improvement would be the automated update for VMware Tools."
"During code upgrades, VxRail can be sensitive. It requires a very clean environment to proceed without issues."
"When you converge the solution, you have to be very careful because the great scalability comes at an important cost."
"I would like better integration with VCF from VMware, which is the Cloud Foundation tool set, so we can easily provision servers very quickly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"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."
"It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."
"We pay for annual support from VxRail."
"We most likely pay yearly for support. The cost was justified by now because it stays up and I don't have to constantly open tickets. I probably rebooted the system once or twice. We haven't replaced any discs in the storage, we haven't had to do any disc replacements, so it just runs. You pay a little more but you cut down on the maintenance."
"The licensing costs can vary depending on the number of processors and specific requirements, which may result in considerable expenses."
"When compared with others, the price is very reasonable."
"The price of VxRail highly depends on your design and your configuration. For example, if I connect Pure Storage directly to ESXi hosts and bypass Fiber Channel switches and I will save on money. However, it reduces my redundancy and makes it not as robust of deployment and easy to manage. An HCI environment, it's more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN. With storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much. I don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel Switches, because I have it all right there."
"Compare it to what you spent on your last solution."
"While one could argue, from a strictly corporate standpoint, that the cost of VxRail has been in the higher range, the true evaluation lies in the return on investment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise58
 

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.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.