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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

    VMware vSAN

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AVMware vSAN is an enterprise-class storage virtualization software that provides a simple path to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and multi cloud. VMware vSAN is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.N/A
    Pricing
    FreeNASVMware vSAN
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    FreeNASVMware vSAN
    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
    Community Pulse
    FreeNASVMware vSAN
    Considered Both Products
    iXsystems
    No answer on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    14 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
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    FreeNASVMware vSAN
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    Medium-sized Companies
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    Enterprises
    DiskStation
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    FreeNASVMware vSAN
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.5
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    FreeNASVMware vSAN
    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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    VMware by Broadcom
    The product is a must for enterprise & SMB segments as this gives a good value for money and the licensing policy is very well defined and cost effective for the feature set it provides. This is very well suited for organization which have multiple brand storage systems and would like to consolidate them all together, thus providing a huge storage capacity for the organizations data growth. The product becomes less appropriate in organization where they have single storage platform as the service provider would have the ability to consilidate all the storage systems. Hence this products may be under utilized.
    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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    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMware runs VSAN certification programs to make sure the OEM sells validated nodes. It helps customers to select appropriate certified ready nodes like Lenovo ThinkAgile VX which comes factory configured and easy to set up.
    • Hyperconverged solutions reduce real estate space and networking costs when compare with shared storage. The host overhead also less.
    • Supports All-Flash (SATA and NVMe SSDs) and Hybrid vSAN with HDD and SSD. So customers can choose cost-effective solutions appropriate to their workloads.
    • Supports different storage policies, RAID and duplication, and compression features and it makes a complete storage solution.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • We were a fairly early adopter of VMware vSAN and as such experienced several growing pains.
    • We experienced a few bugs that took a few software versions upgrades to go mostly away.
    • The biggest issue we had overall was with host drivers. Even with vSAN ready node compatible hosts, you have to be very careful that the drivers for NIC and RAID controllers are right.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    iXsystems
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Deploying and configuring VSAN is a relatively simple process for people that are already used to working in virtual environments, primarily for those that are familiar with vSphere. The compatibility of those two products is amazing. You shouldn't really encounter any issues and if you do, you surely did something wrong.
    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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    Support is (as always forVMware) top notch and easy to work with. The majority of computer companies are outsourcing their tech staff, and it seems they do as well. But their guys know the product well and are quick to respond to your ticket (if the severity is right!).
    Incentivized
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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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    VMware by Broadcom
    Our VMware solution is built in-house for the organization's private application, we don't want to put our data on cloud premises. Also, vSAN is a cost-effective solution for our environment. We have done the POC with both products to understand the Flexibility, Management, and cost. After the successful POC, we have chosen the VMware vSAN.
    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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    VMware by Broadcom
    • we have realized savings in the licensing compared to traditional storage (over $500,000 over the last 5 years)
    • we have realized ROI through efficiencies in our staff of approx $1MM (over the last 5 years)
    • also, positive impact on the time to value/speed of implementation allowed us to realize business objectives (Over $1MM of ROI)
    Incentivized
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