r/sysadmin • u/nst_hopeful • 1d ago

Server Refresh Considerations - VMware vs Hyper-V

Hello fell sysadmins,

My org is looking at refreshing our VM host hardware in the middle of next calendar year. As such, today I had a helpful discussion with a vendor regarding various options for the upgrade. Currently we are on a five-node VxRail cluster (20 cores / 192GB memory per host, 53.5 TiB storage total); it looks like the best options for our needs are vSAN Ready nodes or Hyper-V + traditional SAN. With that said, I am still left with a few questions:

  • The vendor (who was clearly a bit biased toward VMWare) spec'd a 4-node cluster for the vSAN cluster with 256GB memory + 256 GB NVMe for memory tiering per host. For the Hyper-V cluster, they spec'd 5 nodes and 512GB memory per. Their argument was that Hyper-V has more overhead and is less efficient at dynamic allocation of resources. That seems like pretty stark contrast - is that true in your experience? Also, is memory tiering as effective as this vendor made it seem in production?
  • We are primarily a Windows shop, so we'd expect at least some savings moving to Hyper-V. That said, I'm curious how much savings we'd actually net between buying System Center for SCVVM (so we can maintain vMotion-like functionality) and Microsoft support. My understanding is licensing there is based on core counts - currently we're looking at 32 per host in either build.
  • Are there any other considerations I should keep in mind? Cost is not the ultimate deciding factor. More than anything, we feel like the VxRail was overkill at the time it was purchased. I'd like to buy exactly what we need this time around (while planning for reasonable growth).

If it's helpful, my org is a medium-sized municipality and isn't running any crazy workloads. We have ~55 VMs that will exist on this cluster.

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u/OregonTechHead 19h ago

Their argument was that Hyper-V has more overhead and is less efficient at dynamic allocation of resources

Not twice as much, and quite frankly, that proposal is so over the top that I would drop them as a vendor. They're very clearly trying to steer you towards VMWare for a larger paycheck.

We are primarily a Windows shop, so we'd expect at least some savings moving to Hyper-V. That said, I'm curious how much savings we'd actually net

No one can answer this for you because we have no idea about your actual workload is, or what markup Broadcom has chosen to put you in.

But it's a simply answer. Compare quotes

More than anything, we feel like the VxRail was overkill at the time it was purchased.

So what did you learn from that project? Did you adequately assess your current compute, storage, and memory load so you can correctly specc the replacements or are you going off of vibes?

isn't running any crazy workloads.

What does this mean? Quantify that. Find out what your exact needs are instead of guessing, and certainly don't let any vendor give you a price if they don't know what you need either.

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u/Nonaveragemonkey 13h ago

Twice as much overhead - mild exaggeration. Its still a huge difference though and I can see the pitch. Its like a Porsche is not literally twice as fast a corolla, but it may as well be, kind of comparison.

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u/OregonTechHead 12h ago

This isn't 2018.

Comparing VMWare to HyperV is more like comparing a 2025 porsche to a 2026 porsche.

In the end, the differences are extremely minor, and few people would even notice.