NetApp HCI [EOL] vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Why PeerSpot?

NetApp and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 88% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews

88% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual SAN

Read 213 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews

10,057 Views
6,235 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp HCI [EOL]

StarWind Virtual SAN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and StarWind Virtual SAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

August 2026

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Helped 913,683 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind Virtual SAN

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

213

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)

Featured Reviews

Massimiliano Bartolozzi

Chief Information Officer at Lucart S.p.A.

Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022

Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.

Read full review

Jccerong Heron

System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs

The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The ability to size the available space in a way that matches our company's needs is most valuable. For instance, you can decide if you want 80/20, 70/30, or 60/40 space. Redundancy depends on your needs without changing the appliance. You just add space and decide the percentage of space that you need free and the percentage of space that you need for backup. It is all automatic, and you don't have to do anything. You just add space, and the system automatically configures itself with the chosen option."

"Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure."

"It is a unique product with simplified setup and independent control over storage and compute."

"Because NetApp usually marries capacity, performance, and upgrade planning together, there's not a whole lot that I need to worry about at this point."

"Everything we've moved over runs two times faster and in some cases, a lot faster, far more than twice, which our users noticed."

"It is scalable, and NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) makes its deployment easier."

"The stability is fantastic; in my mind, it's one of the best storage products and the software around it has got to be the best across all different storage environments."

"It has automated a lot of workloads. It has automated us from ticketing a large number to a very small number."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros

"This solution has allowed the company to create an HA virtual server environment satisfying budget restrictions and reliability requirements."

"It has now been running continuously for four years with essentially zero downtime."

"The ability to run the software virtually on every virtualization platform and the ability to eliminate all storage vendor locking are the most valuable features."

"I like StarWind's high availability. The failover is almost immediate, so the end users have no idea the guest VM moved at all. We can failover all guest VMs onto a single hypervisor, place it into maintenance mode, install updates, and reboot a hypervisor all during the daytime and remotely, with confidence the process will be successful."

"It allowed us to not have to purchase a dedicated SAN, saving us a lot of money and still allowing us to utilize all the features and functions of Hyper-V."

"I have never worked with a company who is as responsive and helpful with everything I run into."

"The StarWind products have enabled our organization to modernize stations where larger and more expensive equipment was not an option."

"It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"At the moment, I am not looking for new features. Quality of Service (QoS) and capacity efficiency are the two things that I want to resolve in my customer's environment. QoS improves the performance of each tenancy, and with capacity efficiency, the customer can achieve more capacity as compared to the normal capacity."

"I would like to see higher level graphics support because we are going to be doing some virtual desktop for our CAD software, and I want to be able to support AutoCAD and Cantillo on remote desktop machines."

"They could improve the packaging."

"Unfortunately, the solution has not reduced our hypervisor footprint."

"I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."

"The vCenter keeps crashing, meaning that there is no stability in our environment."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

"The price should be lowered. It's a little expensive."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons

"There is no IPv6 support. That is our only issue at this time."

"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."

"The system performs as expected, but we're always looking for performance improvements regarding the best utilization of NVMe disks."

"The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation."

"Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date."

"For me, the product could be improved by it being made cheaper."

"The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."

"The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."

"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."

"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."

"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."

"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."

"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."

"We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."

"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."

"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."

"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

"The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment."

"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

21%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Marketing Services Firm

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	170
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	34

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for StarWind Virtual SAN is very simple; that is another good thing about it, as the pricing is really straightforward. I got a quote, and it w...

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

StarWind Virtual SAN has latency that is not as good versus VMware vSAN, but I believe it is more of a Hyper-V limitation than it is StarWind Virtual SAN; it is not bad enough to be an issue, but i...

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What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?

My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is that it replaced our VMware vSAN. I transitioned from VMware vSAN to StarWind Virtual SAN due to the dramatic increase in VMware licensing costs followi...

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Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 24% of the time

VxRail vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

VMware vSAN vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 10% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 6% of the time

More NetApp HCI [EOL] Competitors

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 12% of the time

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 6% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp HCI [EOL]

September 2026

Download NetApp HCI [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

August 2026

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

StarWind SAN & NAS

Overview

NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

NetApp

StarWind Virtual SAN offers robust, scalable solutions for high availability in VMware and Hyper-V environments, providing real-time data replication and seamless infrastructure integration.

StarWind Virtual SAN stands out for high availability, impressive performance, and smooth integration with existing systems. Its real-time data replication capabilities minimize downtime and boost operational efficiency. Users appreciate the platform's cost-effectiveness and compatibility with diverse hardware, allowing for seamless deployment across hyper-converged infrastructures and data redundancy setups. Despite the strong feature set, calls for a more user-friendly setup and interface are common, alongside requests for clearer documentation and a web-based management interface.

What are the most notable features?

High Availability: Ensures continuous operation with real-time replication.
Seamless Integration: Works smoothly with existing IT infrastructure.
Scalability: Adapts to changing capacity needs easily.
Cost-Effectiveness: Reduces traditional SAN system expenses.
Energy Efficiency: Saves on power consumption with optimized functionality.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Reduced Maintenance: Minimizes IT staff involvement, lowering costs.
Enhanced Performance: Facilitates efficient data handling.
Operational Efficiency: Decreases downtime, increasing productivity.
Flexibility: Supports various IT configurations and strategies.

In industries like small businesses, StarWind Virtual SAN is implemented to replace costly SAN systems, ensuring uptime and strong performance. It's leveraged for hyper-converged infrastructure, failover clustering, and backup strategies, meeting diverse IT demands from hosting virtual machines to data migration.

StarWind

Sample Customers

American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI. Updated: August 2026.

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