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reviewer2029359 - PeerSpot reviewer
NOC Operator at SEDOC
User
Intuitive setup, flexible, and makes it easy to add storage
Pros and Cons
  • "It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."
  • "I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."

What is our primary use case?

This is a new product for us, and right now, we are using it in our lab environment, using one HP Z640 workstation and 2xE2267 processor with 64 GB of RAM. 

We have installed StarWind vSan to support our VMware vCenter v7.0.3 infrastructure with 2x2TB HDD. 

We're also using the same ISCSI service for our Veeam and Commvault backup infrastructure. During our tests, we did not notice any problem with the product. 

It was a reliable, simple solution to add more storage on the go and allowed for flexibility. We are truly thinking of using this product in our production.

How has it helped my organization?

I have been using Starwind vSan for some time, and the experience is great. In terms of simplicity and the features it offers. It takes little time to set up everything and prepare the system.

It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more.

With the flexibility it offers, we can use expand the storage on the go as soon as our backup services need more space. We are not limited the same way were are on physical SAN storage. 

For different services, we use different protocols. SMB, ISCSI, etc.

What is most valuable?

The ability to add storage on the go without putting down the entire infrastructure is useful. This means SLA improvements for our customers, and the continuity of the services is increased. 

We also like the ability to use it on the cloud, as our clients use also backup services on the cloud, meaning more security for backups of our clients. 

We like the simplicity of setting up the system and making it ready to use for the client. 

We appreciate the integration with popular hypervisors and backup systems.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see improvements in the documentation area. Some things need to be clear, although, for some people, the manuals being larger is a big no. That said, it is more important to explain things in detail.

The free version does not offer GUI, and for some people, it will be very difficult to test all the features of the product. They might feel disappointed about the product without a GUI. It would be better to have a trial of the full features for new customers that want to learn about the product. 

Other than that, I have no other improvements to talk about.

Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this product for some months now.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The previous solution we used was a traditional SAN.

How was the initial setup?

The first setup was simple and intuitive.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented the solution by ourselves in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I did not see any hidden costs. That said, everyone has to keep in mind that on the cloud, of course, the cost will be higher than using local storage.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other products before StarWind vSan.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Aljoša Čolnik - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at PROTECT Infra d.o.o.
Real User
Great support, no lag, and allows for minimum hardware usage
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run."
  • "For someone entering the IT sector with little knowledge of storage, iSCSI, and virtual disks, they might not find the GUI immediately obvious."

What is our primary use case?

We have two Windows Servers (2019), and two locations, and needed Virtual SAN so that we can use disks that are installed on each server. With StarWind Virtual SAN, we created multiple SAN disks that helped us create a real-time failover cluster replication service for data and SQL. 

Installation of Virtual SAN from StarWind was very easy, with a pre-ready directory full of PowerShell scripts that you can easily edit to suit your needs and just run them. That way, you create an environment that fits your needs and is something that you can edit very easily or delete.

How has it helped my organization?

We have been searching for a Virtual SAN for a long time. When we found the Virtual SAN from StarWind, our problems were fixed. The easy PowerShell scripts are ready to edit and run for everyone. We are using it for GEO Failover Cluster and have now been using it for a few months with no problem. We also have real-time replication that is working great. We've had no errors. The startup when using Windows is working with no problem with StarWind, so we connect very easily.

What is most valuable?

The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run. It comes with a bunch of free PowerShell scripts that you can edit and run, and also you can create your own with help of PowerShell.

Not so many Virtual SANs work great with a failover cluster as StarWind does; it has no lag, is working great, has no errors, and we can log it easily.

It has minimum hardware usage, which means a lot to us.

The deployment of StarWind Virtual SAN is very easy; they have online manuals that can help you and guide you with your installation.

What needs improvement?

We are really looking forward to the release of more PowerShell scripts that are easy to use and can be edited by rookies. 

Their support is really fast and reliable. You can get it via email or the there's forum community where you already find a lot of questions/answers to your problems and the community will help and guide you through the problems that you have.

We tried to find a con, however, it's really hard. The product just works. If I had to find something, then it would be the GUI. For someone entering the IT sector with little knowledge of storage, iSCSI, and virtual disks, they might not find the GUI immediately obvious.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for a few months now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is great.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is great.

How are customer service and support?

They offer great support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the setup via an in-house IT team.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2017134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cloud Services Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Free to use with good management and an easy setup
Pros and Cons
  • "It has allowed us to save a lot of time and money by letting us create a vSAN within a Windows VM on the environment it controls."
  • "It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI."

What is our primary use case?

I've used this mostly for lab testing with vSphere, where a SAN was not available. In that case, a vSAN was the best product for testing.

We didn't want to have to purchase a whole load of new hardware just to complete some testing for ESXi/vCenter/vSphere, et cetera. We had a fairly large server in terms of computing (CPU, RAM) and storage that wasn't being used, so we decided to use this to host nested ESXi hosts. 

We didn't want to purchase a SAN to complete the testing works, so we could deploy a Windows VM, pass the storage through and use StarWinds vSAN software instead.

How has it helped my organization?

It has allowed us to save a lot of time and money by letting us create a vSAN within a Windows VM on the environment it controls. 

There are 5 ESXi servers (all virtual, nested inside the host ESXi server, so six in total). We then have a single Windows VM deployed with storage passed through directly to it. This was then set up very quickly with some PowerShell scripts. This immediately made the storage available over ISCSI to ESXi and then allowed us to complete testing of failovers and DR, et cetera, without impacting anything live and also keeping costs down.

What is most valuable?

The ability to deploy this software in full for free is great. The fact that StarWind provides this product with pretty much full functionality for free if you're willing to invest your time into working through PowerShell is very helpful. You get a lot out of it. You can also make it highly available, again, all for free! 

The fact you can use the deploy to the same host it will also be managing is excellent, and also, the update process for the software is nice and easy. It's just next, next, next. I've had no issues. It also seems to not suffer from any obvious performance issues on the Windows VM. The resources I've given to it are low in terms of computing and it plods along without issue.

What needs improvement?

It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI. However, when you're using it for free and have the full functionality of the product available to you with scripts and other means, you can't complain. 

Right now, I don't think there is anything I would think to add for my use cases. It's mostly used in a lab environment, and it does the job for us perfectly. If I was to use it in full production, I would certainly look to purchase it rather than use the free one, mostly for the simplicity of using the UI for lots of tasks.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for one to two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is excellent so far. We've not had any issues and I've been using it for a couple of years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

So far, scalability is excellent for the paid version. 

How are customer service and support?

I've not needed to speak to them for any support. That said, I've spoken to a customer service rep, and they are very nice.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not previously use a different solution. I was looking for some vSAN software for testing, and this fit the bill immediately.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is very easy. It's just a typical next, next style. The configuration of the product afterward was a little more complex, however, StarWind provides you the tools, even for free, for setting it up (PowerShell scripts).

What about the implementation team?

I implemented the product personally, in-house. 

What was our ROI?

I'm using a free edition at the moment. ROI does not apply.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would start out by testing the product in the free edition. You get full functionality, and you can see how it will perform in your environment. If you're happy with it overall and want to use it in production, I would certainly pay for it for the UI aspects and the full support as well.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I tried to use things like FreeNAS/TrueNAS. However, it just wasn't quite right for my needs, whereas StarWinds vSAN worked as expected.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1986111 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at American Data Technology, Inc.
User
Easy to deploy and manage with a nice GUI
Pros and Cons
  • "The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
  • "While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage."

What is our primary use case?

We provide managed web hosting services, including dedicated servers in physical or virtual configurations, for various customers, including small, medium, and large companies. We started hosting operations in 1995 and operated our own hosting infrastructure in data centers in North Carolina and Virginia, USA.

Our infrastructure included physical and virtual hosting environments based on VMware, which is where our StarWind Virtual SANs were deployed.

How has it helped my organization?

With our growing needs and customer requirements and demand, we added virtualization to our infrastructure, based on VMware. Storage requirements for the virtualized infrastructure also grew rapidly. We explored all available options, from hyper-converged solutions to the large "big name" solutions. Our infrastructure was too big for hyper-converged solutions. However, we were not ready for the major investments that a full-sized storage infrastructure would need. StarWind's offerings were a perfect fit for us, and remain so until today, almost ten years later.

What is most valuable?

Prior to StarWind, we were using "local storage" with each hypervisor, and this had many drawbacks, including size limitations, performance, technical management, and redundancy. 

With StarWind Virtual SAN, we could easily deploy and manage the storage solutions, add additional storage servers when needed, implement automated redundancy and failover, and scale storage allocations as and when needed, including adding high-performance SSD solutions alongside traditional hard disk solutions.

The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well.

What needs improvement?

While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage, for example, when servers are rebooted. Bitlocker solutions require a physical presence in the data center to enter the encryption string on the server's physical console.

Built-in "Data at Rest" encryption would be an important need, especially for customers with sensitive compliance requirements e.g. Government customers, healthcare customers, eCommerce customers, and many other compliance-sensitive application areas.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the StarWind Virtual SAN product since 2014.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

StarWind Virtual SAN is very scalable, simply by adding additional Windows servers and installing the StarWind Virtual SAN software on it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not previously use a different solution.

What was our ROI?

Compared to similar solutions from NetApp etc., our savings were likely in the tens of thousands of dollars over the years, and we did not need to pay for features that we do not need.

We were very happy and impressed with StarWind's products and the technical support from StarWind's support team. If and when we needed assistance, StarWind's tech support has been very responsive, thorough, and very helpful.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We found the licensing costs and pricing to be very affordable and manageable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at big-name solutions such as NetApp, Cisco, and others.

What other advice do I have?

Our storage infrastructure had been operating flawlessly with great performance and reliability.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1881249 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Of Information Technology at Cass County Government
User
Top 20
Great support, straightforward to set up, and reasonably priced
Pros and Cons
  • "Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."
  • "It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."

What is our primary use case?

We used Starwind to provide HA ISCSI storage to a Hyper-V Cluster for VM Storage. This was mounted through MPIO on Windows for both nodes, using data locality for high levels of speed and performance. 

The devices are connected via fiber over a 10-mile line, over an isolated subnet. This has been great, as we've been able to shut down an entire site and have the machines not notice any difference. This was done over our existing network, using an isolated VLAN to have traffic be in its own area with no other issues.  

How has it helped my organization?

Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost. We were unable to find a solid replacement for our aging HP Lefthand solution, and Starwind stepped into that fantastically. 

Prior to this, based on a design issue, traffic for storage replication was served on the same network as ISCSI traffic. This had the expected issues you'd think, leading to bad performance. Starwind doesn't allow this by default, and as such forced our architect to realize the mistake and worked to get it set up better, with Starwind support. 

What is most valuable?

The support has been top-notch. The engineers you get are knowledgeable and are able to solve issues right out the gate, which is huge for us. We don't get finger-pointing between vendors with them either, as they own issues and take care of them from the beginning. The installation and setup were done with a dedicated engineer, who went through the system step by step and made sure our techs understood the process while getting a great setup out the gate. This was all handled via Zoom, which was a nice thing to not worry about it. 

What needs improvement?

It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings. However, we normally don't have to. 

I do see a lot of info about them now offering a VSAN-like software that is a Linux VM base for VMware. I'd like to see this same option available for Hyper-V, or at least make it more apparent the differences between the two. 

I would like to see more US-based resellers. Working directly with the company was fine, but we prefer to have local resellers available as needed. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is as stable as the Windows OS it runs on. Take that as you will. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It appears to scale horizontally well, as you're able to keep data locality present and it will allow you to pick which data is replicated or not. 

How are customer service and support?

Support is easy to get a hold of, and usually first-call resolution. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used HP Lefthand/StorVirtual, which was end-of-life. 

How was the initial setup?

IT was straightforward, as it was vendor-led and handheld through. They helped us every step of the way. 

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was vendor-led, and they were highly available. 

What was our ROI?

The ROI we witnessed was within 7 months, due to hosting on our system. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost isn't too good to be true. If you're able to use commodity hardware, it's worth a look. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Truenas. 

What other advice do I have?

Give it a shot. They may not be the biggest, however, they're able to play in the field. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1830756 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at Wilson Logistics
User
Excellent support with simple pricing and perpetual licensing
Pros and Cons
  • "This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime."
  • "Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items."

What is our primary use case?

We purchased this product to manage storage between our two-node Hyper-V cluster. We're running a pair of Dell R740's with 16 core CPUs and RAID 6 storage arrays, all solid-state.  

We wanted this product to facilitate a hyper-converged environment while still maintaining two host redundancy. We're running about 25 virtual machines on this cluster, none of which are particularly storage IO intensive, yet we've still not seen any issues with performance when it comes to Starwind vSAN. We ended up on this option as it seemed to be simple, robust, and affordable.

How has it helped my organization?

This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime.  

Keeping things running is an obvious benefit, and we opted to purchase their higher-tier support (for a very minor price increase). Knowing we've got them to fall back on if we can't fix something ourselves is good for peace of mind. The notifications built into the software mean we aren't constantly checking for issues as this is a very critical piece of our infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

Starwind support was extremely helpful throughout the entire process, from the trial period to the actual production implementation. They responded to my emails quickly and did a walkthrough to validate the final production configuration to ensure there were no issues.  

The engineer that assisted me with the walkthrough was very knowledgeable, and not just on Starwind software. He had several recommendations about our Hyper-V cluster configuration, and he always made sure to explain why he was making those recommendations. 

What needs improvement?

Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items. This wasn't a huge issue as the technician that walked me through the install was very knowledgeable and gave me a clear list of steps to take.

The only major issue we had was with the NIC drivers we were using on the link between the two hosts. For reference, we're using a direct connection between a 40 gig QSFP+ NIC in each of our hosts. The issue was that the iSCSI connection between the two hosts would drop after about ten minutes during a full sync of the two storage arrays. The support tech was able to quickly identify the drivers as the issue to get it resolved quickly and prior to our production deadline.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've used the solution for two months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's been very stable for our usage. We've had no issues since implementation two months ago.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I hear it scales well, however, we've not used it beyond our own small scale.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support was very good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we were using Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct across a three-node environment. We switched due to the fact that we sold a portion of our company and downsized to two nodes. Storage Spaces Direct doesn't seem ideal for a two-node system.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was a bit confusing based on the documentation, however, support was very knowledgeable and able to assist with any issues and questions I had.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented it myself with assistance from Starwind support. It's not a complex process.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing is very simple and a setup walkthrough is included in the price of the software. It's a perpetual license and you only pay to renew support, which was a reasonable price.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered storage spaces direct, however, didn't ever implement it on our new two-node cluster.

What other advice do I have?

I really can't overstate how responsive their support was.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1828902 - PeerSpot reviewer
I.T. Director at MBI
User
Easy to set up with great support and reasonable pricing
Pros and Cons
  • "It has been extremely stable for the three years we've been running it."
  • "I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things."

What is our primary use case?

Our company's needs are simple, and I like redundancy, so I was looking for the least expensive way to achieve as close to full hardware redundancy as possible without breaking the bank. 

I learned about vSAN technology, and it made sense to me to just get two hosts with identical hardware, and configure their storage as shared, providing full hardware redundancy (on top of the already partially redundant aspects of the hosts themselves), then just get a decent SAN for off-site DR backup storage (we settled on Synology's Flashstation for that), and I'm really glad we did.

How has it helped my organization?

StarWind's solution provided me the peace of mind knowing I had full hardware redundancy with my new servers and local storage, and it was less expensive than the VMware native license/solution would have been. 

It has been rock solid from day one. I've engaged with their expert support multiple times for maintenance sessions, to upgrade their software, and once to migrate from their Windows Server-based appliance to their Linux version once it was ready. We have only ever had one issue during an upgrade that was quickly resolved by their engineer.

What is most valuable?

By far, the best features are the cost, implementation, and support. The VMWare equivalent license upgrade would have been quite a bit more than the StarWind solution, and the only additional hardware requirements were the dual 25GB fiber NICs needed for the storage Sync functionality. 

They also worked with our preferred reseller (PCM at the time) and had our two brand new Dell hosts shipped to them first for pre-configuration, which they then turned around and shipped to us pre-configured and ready to go.

What needs improvement?

Implementation, maintenance, and support were and have been virtually painless, however, I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things. 

I would really like to be able to see a lot more of what is going on under the hood metrics-wise. It would be great to be able to see at least a little bit more. Specifically, things like performance, bandwidth utilization of the synchronization connection, and how it impacts the overall performance of the hosts.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been extremely stable for the three years we've been running it. There hasn't been one operational hiccup and only one issue which happened during a support session performing an upgrade, which was quickly resolved by the engineer.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Our needs are simple. Therefore, we only have ever used or needed two hosts. That said, it is nice to know that it can scale to clusters if we ever need to go that route, as unlikely as that seems right now. 

How are customer service and support?

The few times I've ever engaged with technical support were for upgrades, and it was always pretty painless, with the one exception I mentioned before, where we had a problem with a host that ultimately required a hard reset. We're still not sure what happened to cause it to lock up, however, once it was back up everything was fine.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I had looked at other vSAN technology in the past, however, the cost was beyond our budget, especially after factoring in the cost of the support needed, since I am not a storage engineer.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy. We simply had to unbox the servers, rack them, connect the cables, and turn them on. It was that simple.

What about the implementation team?

The initial setup was handled in-house - meaning, yours truly. All I had to do after firing them up was add the hosts to my existing vCenter server, migrate all of the VMs over to the new Hosts/Storage, and, once done, shut down and remove the old hosts from vCenter.

What was our ROI?

ROI is hard to quantify since we've never used anything else. That said, at least without it there would have been many thousands of dollars just for the licensing costs and appropriate support would have been even more than that. StarWind provides comprehensive support on everything, as long as you buy the hardware through them too.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I'd advise users to do their due diligence, however, StarWind's technology works as advertised, at a much lower cost than the native VMware solution. Their licensing is simple and affordable, and their support is impeccable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered VMware's native vSAN technology and may have gone with it if I hadn't found StarWind while searching for alternatives.

What other advice do I have?

If you are looking at a simple, affordable vSAN technology, you can't go wrong with StarWind.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1825488 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director Of Technical Services at D-J Engineering, Inc.
User
Quick to set up, lowers costs, and offers easy training
Pros and Cons
  • "Training is also easy as it is just one system to learn."
  • "We just need more integration with Veeam."

What is our primary use case?

We use the StarWind Virtual SAN in a HA stack. We then use readily available HPE servers (DL380DL - 26 disk) to be the hardware. This allows us to have reliable hardware with reliable software and no downtime. It also drives costs down to almost nothing compared to hardware-based SAN devices. 

Year after year costs are also down with not needing to keep hardware warranties up, due to parts being available easily. Overall, we have saved many thousands of dollars by going this way. We see no difference in IOPS or any other performance metrics. 

We have also tested the high availability a few times (once on purpose and a few not). It seems to work flawlessly.

How has it helped my organization?

We are able to scale our storage much easier and cheaper than we would with traditional SAN or NAS systems. 

The cost justification is very easy since the overall cost is literally support for the software. We do not keep any sort of hardware support since we can just buy hardware as needed from anywhere. This means that you have to have some knowledge of hardware if you are picking it out - or their support is more than willing to help. I like this as it allows me to pick out how resilient I want my system to be and how much I want it to cost.

What is most valuable?

The ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space is great. For example, we use Gen 9 DL380 servers with 26 bays. This allows us to migrate to newer hardware at any time without having to buy new shelves or head units of expensive SAN solutions (or even worse, have multiple SAN support contracts going at once in order to swing data between them). This also makes it so we can easily keep older data without immense cost to our organization. 

Training is also easy as it is just one system to learn.

What needs improvement?

We just need more integration with Veeam. Overall, I like the fire and forget model, so really there isn't an immense amount of things that I would request. 

Possibly some reporting via SMTP of some metrics would be nice to have. That said, quite honestly I get that from enough systems already and end up ignoring most of them. 

If this was something I was logged into every day then maybe I would request more features. Then again, I would be more concerned with its quality (we shouldn't need to log in daily). I'm not really sure what more to ask for.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for around six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Been using the solution for six years and have not had it fail.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have scaled quite large. It scales well.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support seems responsive. We've only used them a few times.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had three different systems (Dell PowerVault, HPE Lefthand, Lenovo NAS) and they were expensive to keep and more expensive to expand.

How was the initial setup?

The setup takes about five minutes.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented the solution myself. 

What was our ROI?

The ROI is almost immediate.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I'd advise new users to just do some homework on what they need. Pick out hardware that can support it and get a license. The setup would be about 5 minutes.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, we looked at Dell PowerVault, HPE Lefthand, and Lenovo NAS.

What other advice do I have?

The solution offers great ROI.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free StarWind Virtual SAN Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: June 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free StarWind Virtual SAN Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.