FreeNAS vs. HPE SimpliVity

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
FreeNAS
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
FreeNAS 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
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
HPE 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
Best Alternatives
FreeNASHPE SimpliVity
Small Businesses
DiskStation
DiskStation
Score 9.1 out of 10
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
DiskStation
DiskStation
Score 9.1 out of 10
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
DiskStation
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Score 9.1 out of 10
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreeNASHPE SimpliVity
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(7 ratings)
8.0
(7 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.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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!
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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.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • 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
  • Upgrades are better than they used to be, but still complex.
  • Make existing RapidDR product integral, versus a separate licensed component.
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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
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.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
We have decided to sign with Nutanix. We feel they are improving technology and are just a better software now.
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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
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • 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.
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