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SteelFusion vs VMware vSAN 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

SteelFusion
Ranking in HCI
30th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of SteelFusion is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 7.8%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSAN7.8%
SteelFusion1.4%
Other90.8%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

it_user866178 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at MAZZETTI+GBA
Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices
The level of tech support depends on who you get. There are some techs that just read the script and ask you if you’ve rebooted, but once you get past that - or if you have a very technical issue - the support is great. They really know the product and get you up and running again ASAP.
ShyamikaThamel - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium
Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance
VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices. All services that need to be local to the user exist on local servers. Users run applications and access data locally while the data is constantly being synced to Central, and protected. If an edge device fails, we can recover quickly."
"That is why Riverbed SteelFusion has delivered a masterclass technology that not only abstracted and virtualized the storage vendors’ unique logical storage structures, it has made it logically closer and seamless to the branch applications from a performance and experience perspective."
"I think you should try it – it's really stable and valuable and helps to drill your costs down."
"vSAN is a very cost-effective solution for just about any data center, as it is very easy to deploy, scale and manage while being built on commodity hardware so customers do not have to break the bank to invest in this technology compared to a much more costly centralized storage array."
"If you are going for features, scalability, and performance, VMware is the best solution."
"We use the solution for data storage virtualization."
"I like the orchestration feature."
"The most important thing is the simplicity of the product. It is a well-established product with good stability."
"Very easy to implement in any existing environment."
"The total cost of ownership, as it's really cheap for us and we have budgetary constraints, plus, as we're a hospital, doctors need to access their patient data quickly, which VSAN allows them to do."
 

Cons

"Setting up disks for use is a multi-step process that could use some refinement. Setting up a core-to-core replication or DR strategy is also cumbersome."
"We have encountered some challenges related to administrative tasks and licensing issues for the product."
"One of the things that we've had challenges with are when we place hosts into maintenance mode. Sometimes doing so triggers large re-sync processes which can be time-consuming and which have, at times, pushed the capacity to the threshold. I definitely think making some changes in that area would provide some big improvements."
"I would love for this product to be cheaper and easier to configure."
"There's already a concern with VMware with ransomware and security issues. VMware could focus on improving security."
"If you don't stick to the rules and prerequisites, you end up having a nightmare."
"I would like to see faster re-sync and recovery times after a host failure. It’s so difficult to restore a normal situation after a failure."
"Its integration with a hybrid cloud can be improved. Its scalability can also be improved so that it can be integrated with more than 32 nodes."
"The features I'd like to see in future releases of VSAN are around back-up and recovery."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price is an issue – this is expensive stuff. My advice is to beat up Riverbed as much as possible on price. These things are expensive and there is room for negotiation."
"Every product is licensed with full support for a certain number of years. The licensing could be cheaper."
"I would like to use more advanced models of the solution but the price needs to be reduced. There are some extra costs for this solution including a license."
"VMware vSAN is a little bit expensive and we pay annually. We have an educational institute where we receive discount prices from VMware. We do receive a reasonable discount but it's still expensive."
"We did consider other hyperconverged solutions. It usually came down to price. vSan was the most cost effective thing."
"With the new pricing model, it's expensive for the customer."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee."
"I'd love for this product to be cheaper."
"The only problem I have with VMware is the price. It is a good product, but it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business102
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise137
 

Questions from the Community

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What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?
We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

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