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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Hyper-V

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AN/A

    $24.95

    per month

    DiskStation

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/ADiskStation is a line of network-attached storage (NAS) solutions from Synology headquartered in Taiwan.N/A
    Pricing
    Hyper-VDiskStation
    Editions & Modules
    Developer
    $24.95
    per month
    Bronze
    $49.00
    per month
    Silver
    $89.00
    per month
    Gold
    $135.00
    per month
    Platinum
    $199.00
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Hyper-VDiskStation
    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
    Hyper-VDiskStation
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Hyper-V
    Hyper-V is much simpler and less costly the VMWare. Administration is far more intuitive. This reduces cost to implement, and cost to maintain. In our SMB focused environment (10-70 users) the enterprise advantages of VSphere (multi-site, blade / SAN architecture, and …
    Incentivized
    Synology
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    33 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    29 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    34 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    29 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    33 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    29 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    27 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    26 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    27 Answers
    Features
    Hyper-VDiskStation
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Hyper-V and Synology DiskStation
    Feature
    Hyper-V
    7.6
    73 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Synology DiskStation
    -
    Ratings
    Virtual machine automated provisioning6.861 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management console7.873 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup8.265 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration7.367 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security7.867 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Hyper-VDiskStation
    Small Businesses
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    FreeNAS
    Score5.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    FreeNAS
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Hyper-VDiskStation
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.4
    (74 ratings)
    9.2
    (30 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (11 ratings)
    9.1
    (9 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.5
    (16 ratings)
    9.7
    (7 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Hyper-VDiskStation
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Hyper-V makes a lot of sense in scenarios that will support several Windows Server-based OS virtual machines. The only limitation of those licensed VMs is the hardware that hosts the Hyper-V role. If you need to deploy many servers running Windows Server OS, it is worth the price. Hyper-V also does a great job of managing the server host's computational resources, including memory, CPU, network, and storage.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    The Synology DiskStation is well suited as a NAS solution, easy enough to mirror a Windows file server shares setup. Access to the Hyperbackup utility eliminates the need to purchase a tape backup solution. A portable USB drive can be used as the initial backup target. For air gap purposes can connect Hyperbackup to the various cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP to copy backup data there. Utilizing it as a backup solution has also been great, instead of purchasing a tape solution, tapes and an offsite tape repository. Active Backup for Business is another excellent backup utility for physical servers, VMWare virtual machines, etc. Restoring files is fairly intuitive. Until Synology introduced the dual controller setup, using it as a SAN was less appropriate as there was occasional downtime when the controller had an issue but this was less important for the scenarios we were using it for. It would be more of a concern if we had used it for things that require more robust uptime requirements. Overall we are happy with the features of the Synology DiskStation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Easy to use GUI - very easy for someone with sufficient Windows experience - not necessarily a system administrator.
    • Provisioning VMs with different OSes - we mostly rely on different flavors of Windows Server, but having a few *nix distributions was not that difficult.
    • Managing virtual networks - we usually have 1 or 2 VLANs for our business purposes, but we are happy with the outcomes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    • Synology DiskStation offers lots of options for creating links to share files or request that some uploads files. It makes it really easy to just share a link that can have an expiration or a set number of times it is accessed.
    • We always had enough storage on our Synology DiskStation, we never had to worry about something being too big to upload or share.
    • Love how you can create folders that are shared and also have some that are private. This makes it so easy to have shared collaborations with coworkers or clients, but also allows you to have a private place to save things that only you need.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • We manage Hyper-V using both System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and the in-build Hyper-V administration tool, the former being the main product we use as the built-in tool is very light on functionality, unlike VMware ESXi.
    • Management of storage is not great and quite a shift away from how VMware does it with ESXi; there is no separate panel/blade/window for LUNs/data stores, which means there is a lot of back and forth when trying to manage storage.
    • A dedicated client with all functionality in one place would be awesome.
    • Having the equivalent of ESXi's virtual console is something which is absolutely needed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    • While BTRFS is a more advanced file system than ext4, it also is in a perpetual state of development, with many features not fully functional and a plethora of bugs. Synology has managed to overcome many of these limitations by placing BTRFS on top of a LVM, but there are much better file systems that Synology could have used, such as OpenZFS.
    • DSM's built-in backup software, HyperBackup, while robust, oftentimes runs into issues. Specifically, backups can be working fine for months or years, and then suddenly the backups will fail. Sometimes these failures can be resolved, but oftentimes the backups need to be completely restarted. Fortunately, even when the backup fails, the existing backups are still accessible, it is just that new backups can not be performed.
    • The underlying Linux OS provides significant benefits, but also adds a fair amount of complexity. Most of that complexity is wonderfully hidden by the DSM interface, but when certain problems arise, delving into the Linux command line is not out of the question.
    • Perhaps the biggest issue with Synology DiskStation is Synology's support. The issue isn't that the support is bad, but it can be frustratingly slow when dealing with a major issue. Synology does have a very active community that is always willing to help, but nothing beats first-party support.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    Cheap and easy is the name of the game. It has great support, it doesn't require additional licenses, it works the same if it is a cluster or stand-alone, and all the servers can be centrally managed from a system center virtual machine manager server, even when located at remote sites.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    As long as Synology give us support for our hard drivers we will not change. I know Synology has now forced their hands to buy their own hard drivers and their new line of products. But if we still have support for old hard drivers from other manufacturers then we will still use Synology Nas. Otherwise we change manufacturers
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    It is quite intuitive. Junior techs are able to provision and administrate Hyper-V virtual server infrastructure with little to no additional training. Documentation from Microsoft is easily avaliable and decently well written. Hyper-V is reliable and does what it is supposed to. Can be admin from an intuitive gui, or aoutmated with extensive powershell.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    The Synology DiskStation is easy to set up and manage. The interface is clean and features are well documented. These units are reliable and can be set up to do scheduled integrity checks so failures can be mitigated before they halt business operations. The available packages for expanded roles makes these devices versatile.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    In the past 2 years our Hyper-V servers have only had a handful of instances where the VM's on them were unreachable and the physical Hyper-V server had to be restarted. One time this was due to a RAM issue with the physical box and was resolved when we stopped using dynamic memory in Hyper-V. The other times were after updates were installed and the physical box was not restarted after the updates were installed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Microsoft
    Hyper-V itself works quickly and rarely gave performance issues but this can be more attributed to the physical server specifications that the actual Hyper-V software in my opinion as Hyper-V technically just utilizes config files such as xml, and a data drive file (VHD, VHDX, etc) to perform its' duties.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    I gave it a middle of the road rating - as far as getting direct help from Microsoft this never seems to happen. (Good luck getting ahold of them.) Getting help from online support forums is pretty much where I get all my help from. Hyper-V is used quite widely and anything you could need help with is out there and easily searched for on your favorite search engine.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    Unfortunately, the one time I've had to reach out to DiskStation support, it did not go well. My NAS appliance wasn't appearing on the network, and no matter what the support team tried, they could not get it back online. Instead of offering to send me a new unit, they told me to go buy a new one - obviously, this was a disappointing response and not very eco-friendly either! Fortunately, through some internet research of my own, and some ingenuity, I figured out I could restore my NAS to factory settings by removing all the drives and resetting. Only then did I realize I had a bad disk. I had to experiment for a while to figure out which one it was. Once I had done that, though, I was able to get the latest DiskStation loaded back on, no thanks to the DiskStation support crew. If notifications were rock solid, I suspect I would have caught the bad disk before it because an OS problem, but I never received a bad-disk notification.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    We had in person training from a third party and while it was very in depth it was at a beginner's level and by the time we received the training we had advanced past this level so it was monotonous and redundant at that point. It was good training though and would have provided a solid foundation for learning the rest of Hyper-V had I had it from the beginning.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    The training was easy to read and find. There were good examples in the training and it is plentiful if you use third party resources also. It is not perfect as sometimes you may have a specific question and have to spend time learning or in the rare case you get an error you might have to research that error code which could have multiple causes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    initial configuration of hyper-v is intuitive to anyone familiar with windows and roles for basic items like single server deployments, storage and basic networking. the majority of the problems were with implementing advanced features like high availability and more complex networking. There is a lot of documentation on how to do it but it is not seamless, even to experienced virtualization professionals.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    VMware is the pioneer of virtualization but when you compare it with Hyper-V, VMware lacks the flexibility of hardware customization and configuration options Hyper-V has also GPU virtualization still not adequate for both platforms. VMware has better graphical interface and control options for virtual machines. Another advantage VMware has is it does not need a dedicated os GUI base installation only needs small resources and can easily install on any host.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    Synology DiskStation packs a punch with the latest and greatest feature set which goes above and beyond many other vendors. It allows for a turn-key solution to cover almost every use case in the SMB market leaving other vendors behind.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Microsoft
    Nothing is perfect but Hyper-V does a great job of showing the necessary data to users to ensure that there is enough resources to perform essential functions. You can also select what fields show on the management console which is helpful for a quick glance. There are notifications that can be set up and if things go unnoticed and a Hyper-V server runs out of a resource it will safely and quickly shut down the VM's it needs to in order to ensure no Hardware failure or unnecessary data loss.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Massively positive impact on expenses in my company by reducing our storage needs drastically. We were able to reallocate the budget to upgrading our primary Hyper-V server with pure enterprise SSD's as we reduced the storage needs by over 50% and by this we increased performance by over 400%.
    • We have deployed more than 8 servers with EXTREMELY minimal cost using Hyper-V and not requiring another hardware server to host it. We have leveraged our hardware resources in our 2 servers so well that we were able to add many new services, not in place prior, as we did not have the servers to host them. Now with Hyper-V, we deployed many more servers in VM's, purchased OS's & CAL's, but did not need any hardware, which is the greatest expense of all.
    • With Hyper-V, our ROI was reduced from 36-40 months on our primary server, down to only 13 months by reducing costs of storage and adding so many more servers, by calculating the "would-be" cost of those servers that was avoided by creating them in Hyper-V.
    Incentivized
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    Synology
    • Minimal investment in the hardware, big return on productivity
    • Streamlined IT needs, we no longer have to hire our IT vendor to assist us as regularly as we did when we were running servers
    • Productivity on the road through web access has increased productivity and billable hours for remote employees
    Incentivized
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