StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

We use the solution as a hyper-converged appliance for critical business applications for a 12+TB data set with high availability and proactive storage monitoring. 

We use a two-node HCA cluster running Starwind's vSAN on VMware with 40Gbps storage replication links and heartbeat channels. 

We have been through two sets of StarWind vSAN/HCA appliances over five or more years and migrated from all physical servers to two hyper-converged nodes and then from the two hyper-converged nodes to two new nodes when the old nodes had reached maximum service age. 

We have leveraged StarWind's team for assistance with setup and configuration on both sets of appliances and their support as needed.

StarWind's vSAN took us from an organization with no failover for our infrastructure to having a complete failover within four to five minutes. It also allows our IT staff to perform hardware and software maintenance on infrastructure during business hours, cutting our need for overtime and extended work hours. 

We no longer have to worry about hardware failure since either of our vSAN nodes can support our entire workload until the failed node can be repaired or replaced, then the data stores resynced, and high availability returned.

The ease of reaching the support team and their promptness for support is great. The install team has also been excellent, always performing a thorough job and never rushing thru the process. 

The simplicity of architecture since the nodes can be directly connected. There is no need for a storage network unless you exceed three nodes of storage this is a large cost saving for most organizations that do not have extremely large datasets.

StarWind's VCA also provides a great TCO for the provided features and costs versus other solutions.

I would love to see more vendor selection to be available for the HCA/vSAN appliances. All the appliances are currently Dell, and the additional cost savings could be found with Supermicro or Lenovo configurations. 

If StarWind's proactive support alerting could also have an email integration or work with a PSA system so we open alerts when StarWind has an event generated, it would be great. Right now, we operate off the alerts being sent to StarWind and their proactive service team is reaching out to us to work on remediation.

I've used the solution for over five years.

In our experience, it has been extremely stable. We have several clusters deployed and have never had any large issues with any of them.

The solution is very scalable. You can add nodes to increase computer and storage. You only need to add storage networking once you exceed three nodes.

Support is prompt and usually, they can meet via Zoom in just a few minutes from the creation of a support request/ticket.

Previously we have used other SAN solutions that did not provide the same level of redundancy or support.

The initial setup was very straightforward and well-documented. When purchasing a vSAN, the appliance setup is included with StarWind, and they can do most of the setup with you over a Zoom call.

We used a mix of in-house and vendor support. The vendor's level of expertise is excellent. I've never gotten off a call without a solid answer being provided.

Our ROI was achieved within 36 months of deployment. We ran our first vSAN cluster for 60+ months before replacing it with a new vSAN cluster.

The setup is the most cost-effective as a two or three-node cluster yet is still cost-effective in larger configurations.

We evaluated several solutions, including SCALE, Dell EMC, Dell MD Storage Arrays, HPE 3PAR, and others.

Starwind's vSAN software is available on their websites and you can set up a test environment to vet the product.

This solution was implemented for a Hyper-V production build, where we used StarWind virtual SAN to create and build a redundant DataStor for our clusters. Once this was completed, management and troubleshooting were simple as the application is very user-friendly and highly flexible in terms of configurability. We have never encountered any issues with this product, as it is very reliable.

It has improved our organization in terms of its uptime as our main cluster has never been offline due to a SAN failure. This is a huge plus for us as we need our data available 24 /7. 

There are not many futures I can recall that would stand out to me the most, as the entire application functions as one working function.

It could have a dashboard so that you can check all servers' SAN health and performance.

I have been using this solution for approximately five years.

The solution is very stable.

very good

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution.

Technical support was more or less straightforward.

it was done in-house

We did evaluate VMware.

We were using traditional physical storage for our environment, and it was costly for us. On top of that, the performance was not satisfactory. We started using the StarWind vSAN for virtual storage. 

It is cost-effective and has amazing features. The capacity to scale assets to address changing issues and upgrade execution contrasted with conventional capacity arrangements and therefore is another positive aspect when utilizing StarWind Virtual SAN. 

Utilizing the StarWind Virtual SAN gave us a more steady and adaptable arrangement. I noticed a persistent upgrade in the functionalities of the StarWind Virtual SAN, so its development is great.

We were facing issues with high availability and the integration of virtualization platforms then we started using StarWind vSAN to help us improve the high availability and the integration with the virtualization platform. 

StarWind Virtual SAN permitted me to have extraordinary adaptability in making an exceptionally basic framework, where I could gather total independence over vSAN, yet connect it so that it was fit for working with the VMware Hypervisor. That way, I had a more powerful and dependable framework.

The high availability features helped with storage availability 24/7.

Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage.

StarWind Virtual SAN is great for a financially savvy arrangement if you're utilizing Hyper-V or VMware. 

Thanks to a simple execution, you can save your expenses and convey the product with your inner sources with the help of a merchant.

The onboarding is effortless. Setting up and designing the Virtual SAN is clear, with an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple to oversee and screen the capacity climate.

We have an elite execution. StarWind Virtual SAN can convey quick, dependable capacity for virtual machines. Its abiluty to use nearby capacity as a component of a profoundly accessible capacity group assists with guaranteeing superior execution.

The platform needs to improve user management and the web console. 

Improved help for more up-to-date advancements would be ideal. As fresher innovations and guidelines arise, it tends to be provoking programming suppliers to keep up. 

While StarWind Virtual SAN, by and large, works effectively to support the most recent advancements, there might be a few regions where it lingers behind the opposition. Further developing help for fresher advances could assist the product with remaining cutthroat and pertinent.

Upgraded investigating capacities are needed. While the product incorporates a scope of symptomatic and investigating devices, there might be a few regions where it very well may be gotten to the next level. For instance, giving more nitty gritty mistake messages or better direction on the most proficient method to determine issues could be useful for clients.

I have been using the StarWind vSAN solution for the last six months and I found this product exceptional and amazing for virtual storage.

StarWind vSAN allows the use of commodity hardware, reducing the dependency on proprietary hardware. 

It ensures that data and applications are always available, reducing downtime and increasing productivity. 

It eliminates the need for expensive storage hardware and provides an affordable software-defined storage solution. 

By using StarWind vSAN with our current hardware and Microsoft Hypervisor capabilities, expenditure can be reduced. 

The easy-to-use administration interface makes light work of required configuration changes and settings that must be applied.

The customer support provided by StarWind is excellent. The company offers a variety of support options, including phone, email, and chat, and their support team is responsive and knowledgeable. 

Another advantage of StarWind vSAN is its performance. The solution is designed to deliver high-speed storage performance, with support for SSD caching and advanced data compression techniques. This can help to improve application performance and reduce latency, particularly for high-demand workloads. 

The product is highly flexible and provides excellent performance and customer support from StarWind Software Inc.

The valuable aspects of the solution include:

Cost-effectiveness. It eliminates the need for expensive storage hardware and provides an affordable software-defined storage solution.

Simplified management. It provides a simple and intuitive interface to manage storage infrastructure.

Flexibility. It allows organizations to use commodity hardware, reducing the dependency on proprietary hardware.

High-availability. It ensures that data and applications are always available, reducing downtime and increasing productivity.

Any product, service, and solution always have room for improvement. By continuing to utilize emerging technologies and integrations with relevant storage technologies, the StarWind vSAN platform has ample room for growth.

Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome. 

To make it easier for new customer adoption, the software setup and configuration could be presented in a more simplified manner. Instructions in email communication to obtain support during the implementation and configuration of the software need to be more visible. 

Using a "Newsletter" design approach during email communication would be beneficial. This would allow clients and newcomers to see that StarWind Software Inc. is able and ready to accept support and assistance requests as required. 

I started using the solution this year.

StarWind vSAN is a robust and reliable software-defined storage solution that can help organizations create a highly available and fault-tolerant storage environment. While there may be some challenges with setup and configuration, these can be overcome with proper planning and support from StarWind Software Inc.

Our primary use case is for physical to virtual environment migration, requiring a VSAN storage for a data center we had an old BLC 460 gen 6 blades with physical storage attached. If we had any issues with the hardware or operating system the downtime for production would be for hours, so we created a virtual data center with VMware vSphere and added 3 20TB storage on each host then created 3-node StarWind scenario being shared on all 3 hosts, and creating virtual machines on 3 hosts and now running on StarWind storage.

StarWind VSAN improved our organization as we had a project to migrate from a physical environment to a virtual environment using Vmware Vsphere 6.7 and we needed a secure VSAN storage to be able to share it over the virtual Datacenter and to be able to use the vSphere high availability feature as we needed storage visible overall host on our SITE, this way we have less downtime if one of the hosts fails and HA comes out as the VSAN storage from StarWind is our main storage where all Virtual Machines are running.

One of the best features on the management console is the way you can deploy the VSAN storage, with basic knowledge you can use the GUI from the node to create partitions then, creating volumes on the management console and manage it like, sync priority, or putting them on maintenance mode to be able to restart hosts.

PowerShell library is pretty good feature as I created with APC PowerChute a script to put volumes on maintenance mode then turning off the StarWind nodes together with the VM and Hosts when UPS reaches 15 percent, this way after a blackout or electrical problems when turning servers on again, there are no issues for syncing or data loss due to energy interrupts.

• Easy migration to ZFS system that is being presented on a new version of StarWind, migrations look complicated as this restructures the whole architecture on the raid level, but could be a good option just by having it and letting the user decide this new feature migration, as based on our experience with ZFS systems they work pretty fast and secure.
• Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device could be a good feature and nice to have as we are not always on our desk.
  

I have been using this solution for over four years.

Good stability as we have a mirrored storage.

Pretty good impressions, especially the support.

Fast response and great attention.

We migrated from HPE StoreVirtual.

It was straightforward if you have RAID, array controllers, and network knowledge.

We tried at first doing it ourselves, but I recommend letting the support team the VSAN installations as we missed some configurations that based on their experience we missed as beginners.

About $3500 USD every 3 years.

its a good option compared with other vendors as licence is perpetual and wont charge every three years as HPE.

Yes, we used HPE StoreVirtual, we moved to StarWind to reduce costs. We tried VMware VSAN and the cost was too elevated for our requirements.

By letting the support team do it next time, as based on their knowledge we have the correct configurations.

We use the solution mostly for the backup sections, VTL and Hyper-v physical tape drive pass-through.

I would definitely, recommend this product. I have been dealing with support for over three years and normally support is the biggest grievance we have in the IT industry. However, support is great, including after-sales support. Sales representatives were knowledgeable and very helpful whether you use the free or paid versions.

This is perfect for mainstream organizations. Even small businesses can use it. They cover legacy methods and all new methods in terms of hypervisors and backup methodologies. I work for an organization that has standalone hosts in rural areas in Africa where tape backup is still a thing. With the assistance of StarWind we were able to share a backup device on "Hyper-V" as Hyper-v does not support pass-through natively.

This is a fantastic software that is highly recommended for the virtualization of storage and for backup methodologies.

The VTL feature is useful as StarWind is the only organization that is suited to the business needs of companies that still run legacy EHR systems.

We have over 30 sites that utilize this technology, and it is very simple and easy to use. Installing the software and maintaining it is very simple. Support and after-sales support are amazing.

It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product.

The team is very knowledgeable, helpful, and willing to see if they can cater to your business needs,

I would like them to release a GUI on the free version

They need to build an interface that will interact with the VTL with a media changer.

I would like to see more advanced free versions.

A suggestion box or feedback box would be a good start with the products.

We need the support of newer VTL technologies and older ones, from LTO4 all the way to LTO8, on one interface.

It would be helpful to have integration with a StarWind backup appliance instead of having a second software to manage the VTL files and operations.

They need to allow us to download older versions of the software and licenses.

I have been using the product for over three years now.

My primary use case was for a SOHO deployment.

We wanted the branch offices to have software-defined storage. For our needs, performance, and costs, StarWind vSAN met our requirements as it was incredibly cost-effective with the best features ever and we did not need a witness for small deploys so the money we spent was on licenses and deployment, with less spent on purchasing another host and licenses for it. 

StarWind Virtual San has improved our organization by giving us access to a product and technology that is very affordable, easy to use and understand, and is covering our backs by offering awesome premium support behind all our operations. You can easily learn the platform, however, you are always being watched by an expert, guiding you all time.

The hardware compatibility list is huge, so everything fits well into what we wanted, and it was just a matter of price and considering future expansions to choose the right product for us.

The most valuable feature, with no competitors, is the two nodes without an agent needed. It is a game changer, I can deploy anywhere with just two hosts (SOHO or small office) and no extra licenses, communication lines, third-party host, or anything else, it just works and does its job correctly.

It integrates (fully) with VMware and Veeam, my hypervisor, and backup vendors, so for me, all the puzzle pieces simply fit and work smoothly.

We are not locked to any vendor. We are free and work with whoever we normally work with, and deploy it on top.

A big improvement would be to make it compatible with NFS protocol, not only iSCSI (for internal communication).

Regarding the free community version, I would love to see a better console/web environment, like the production one, with, of course, limitations - like using it only for lab or internal purposes or limiting the size. Still, I'd like it to be more like the paid version.

They require more media visibility.

I've used the solution for more than two years.