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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    FreeNAS

    Score5.4 out of 10
    N/AFreeNAS is an open source operating system that allows nearly any hardware serve as a network-attached storage device. It was developed by iXsystems.N/A

    HPE SimpliVity

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AHPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution. HPE acquired SimpliVity for its Omnicube line of products in January 2017.N/A
    Pricing
    FreeNASHPE SimpliVity
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreeNASHPE SimpliVity
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
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    FreeNASHPE SimpliVity
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    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FreeNASHPE SimpliVity
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.5
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreeNASHPE SimpliVity
    Likelihood to Recommend
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    I only know what I know...which is my IT world. Having two datacenters that were physical servers attached to a SAN that "attempted" to replicate and then migrating. For a SMB small IT shop that happens to have two datacenters already in place...this has been ideal. I can have a generalist maintain the system and we have a private cloud for DR with hardly any effort...the biggest gain by far!
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    iXsystems
    • The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
    • The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • Deduplication and Compression - SimpliVity keeps the space consumption to a minimum. We currently have 60 servers running virtually and we still have room to grow. This really helps with the backups as we can have longer retention.
    • Backups - Ability to keep backups for longer and to create multiple backup policies for a VM is a breeze. You can have a backup policy for each datastore as well as a separate backup policy for the same VM.
    • Creating Datastores is very easy. No more messing around with LUNS and iSCSI. Just go to the SimpliVity tab and select create datastore and it's done. You can also increase the datastore on the fly as well as have a datastore bigger than 2TB.
    • File level recovery is included as well. The whole backup process in SimpliVity can help you do away with other software.
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    Cons
    iXsystems
    • Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
    • Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • UI can be less than intuitive at times
    • reporting on the actual amount of space utilised can be misleading
    • Upgrading to additional storage if not specc'd correctly can be very expensive.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    It sits nicely ontop of VMWare and is easy enough to use. Some improvements to the UI could be done, such as placing buttons where it is expected to have them not in unusual places, so you have to hunt for them. The backup and restore is intuitive and makes things super easy if you need to do a quick rollback. Space savings on multiple VMs and backups means we are backing up more than we need which gives us confidence in what we do. Updating the system is also fairly easy and their support has always been fantastic. They will contact us if they detect any issues, usually before we notice them!
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    iXsystems
    There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    Support is very good. With proactive support, you are supported by an engineer in North America who answers the phone and immediately begins assisting with your issue. The folks I have dealt with in the last several years have been very skilled and it is rare to have a ticket open for more than a day or two. Issues affecting production are dealt with appropriately and are escalated within the support organization.
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    Alternatives Considered
    iXsystems
    FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    We have decided to sign with Nutanix. We feel they are improving technology and are just a better software now.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    iXsystems
    • Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
    • Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
    • FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • HPE SimpliVity provided us with the ability to replace our existing infrastructure with a solution that provided better backup and recovery, and an off-site DR solution, at a lower price point than other solutions.
    Incentivized
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