StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

We use this product in our VMWare vSphere environment.

We use vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus and have a four host system. All four hosts have matching solid-state storage in a raid 10 array. We have two pairs acting as sync pairs so that one host in each pair can fail before we lose access to the VMs on those hosts. They are connected via 40GB redundant links for both iSCSI and sync.

We have really tried to focus on both speed and redundancy and feel that this setup was the best way to accomplish that goal.

StarWind vSAN has translated to a huge improvement in speed and high availability compared to our old iSCSI shared storage solution. Previously, we had a network-attached storage device with tiered arrays. Part of it was a standard spinning disk and the other was solid-state drives.

With this new solid-state local storage, we have massively improved our user experience.

The sync functionality is amazing as well, compared to our old replication system, in that it happens in realtime as data is written so that high availability is as fast as possible.

Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us. Again, I would say the speed for our users has been extremely valuable. I wouldn't say it was terrible before but you know it's fast when normal, non-tech-savvy users are asking if we upgraded something because some local database app feels faster today!

From a business continuity standpoint, I love how it has improved our failover processes in vSphere. Having the data replicate in real time between host pairs has almost completely automated the process. 

I think the setup could be streamlined a bit. I was already familiar with iSCSI and setting up shared storage, but the abstraction process of getting from configuring the raid array on the local host machine, and making sure all the correct values are set to get the best performance, was a bit finicky.

Then, you had to prepare the appliances on each host and again make sure your VMDKs are properly formatted and then mounted correctly so they can be shared as iSCSI disks. It just felt like a lot of opportunities for a user to make big mistakes that would affect the end performance.

I was very impressed with the tech who walked me through the whole process, as I'm just not sure I would have gotten there on my own. 

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN for five months.

I did not use another solution prior to this one.

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

I evaluated VMware vSAN.

We have Microsoft Hyper-V.  StarWind is configured as a two-node cluster with a Windows environment. It is crucial for the Virtual Machines that give us the resiliency of Exchange, 4TB File Servers, Networking Services, Quickbooks Server, Terminal Servers, Virtualized Spam Protection, Active Directory Services, and a few others.

We needed something that allows for better resiliency than the old way of doing things.  We have seen other choices out there but this seemed to be the best one, given our budget and the hardware we wanted to use.

This StarWind solution has enabled us to be more resilient, once it was set up and tested.

Failover happens very smoothly. Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working.

Before StarWind, we were dealing with an archaic way of synchronizing Virtual machines and data between non-clustered physical hosts and it was very frustrating. Now, things are less hands-on and easier to manage and navigate the virtual environment, including maintenance while other users keep working.

We found that robust communications between clusters and synchronization were key and most valuable to us due to the amount of data we were synchronizing.

The expertise from their technicians is very helpful even in the middle of the night, with the right support plan of course. The technical documentation, the follow-up and the details noted on a per-call basis was amazing. We really appreciate that kind of commitment to our success and stability that the StarWind software brings to our business.

Built-in Notification would really help and as I understand, their new release has this now.  

A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful.

Also, it would be helpful if the software had a few more guides and links/videos on how-to's.

An "Update available" notification within the software would also be helpful and a guided wizard to do the upgrade properly would also be nice and efficient.

A better visual of the SAN storage/actual storage and how it is used would be good, especially when it comes to where the files are located on the disk. 

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN for the last two years.

Stability seems great and we have not had any problems with the software.

Seems very scalable, although we chose to have a two-node cluster.

This area has been the best for us, especially being new to this technology. The support team was amazing with follow-up and they are super patient.

I have not used another solution for the same purpose. This was what I picked based on my research.

Initially, I didn't quite understand the framework and what exact hardware was needed so I had to do some learning. However, once all was in place it went pretty smoothly.

We did our deployment in-house, with help from StarWind.

Return on investment for us, I would say maybe breaking even. As I said, I wish the costs were better balanced.

The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive.

I have looked at Nutanix and VMware.

Mainly that the costs would be less expensive.

StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere provides redundant and highly available storage for our VMware vSphere environment. We have two Supermicro 2029BT-DNC0R servers with VMware ESXi 6.7 and one StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere virtual machine on each. Local SSD-s are directly attached to StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere virtual machine and software RAID is used to make storage from them. For StarWind synchronization, we are using Mellanox ConnectX-4 adapters and directly attached cable between nodes.

StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere has helped us to reduce complexity and is more cost-efficient than an old solution. Previously, we had separate storage (EMC AX4-5) with a fiber channel environment. With StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere we are not forced to use vendor locked-in storage hardware, have to deal with costly fiber channel environment, and our power consumption is also reduced. Also now we have fewer hardware components to worry about and more flexibility to change storage when and where needed.

StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere is a software-defined storage solution that has reduced administration time for storage. It's pretty straightforward to install and setup it and so far it has been robust and worked as advertised from StarWind. It does have Windows Management Console, from where you can make main configurations and monitor events, etc. and Web-based Management interface where you can make software RAID and monitor environment main characteristics like LAN and disk traffic, and so on.

When StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere nodes go offline unexpectedly, the nodes have to re-sync disks fully which takes a long time. We had a power failure and when both nodes came online, VMware vSphere didn't see StarWind disks before I manually re-scanned them form ESXi administration console even though it should happen automatically - maybe I had to wait till all the StarWind disks were fully synchronized but that toked in our case 8+ hours.

There are no security and bug fixes without an active support agreement!

I have been using it for a little bit more than one year.

Product is stable and works most of the time on it's own.

It's scalable.

Customer service is helpful.

This is the first software-defined storage solution for us.

It took some time to get familiar with the software and I did mostly set it up myself and in the process, it was inspected and checked by a StarWind technician.

In-house implementation.

We have not calculated ROI.

Something to keep in mind is that you are not allowed to install security and bug fixes without active support agreement.

VMware vSAN financial aspects give StarWind an advantage.

Product updates are not that frequent (two-three times per year). Also, it concerns me that back-end OS (we are using StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere and it's built on top of CentOS 7) is not updated every time the update is coming out. For example, our installation is more than half a year un-updated, and there are many updates available for CentOS. StarWind support does not recommend installing them independently.

We are using VSAN in our private cloud environment to provide highly redundant CSVs to a Hyper-V Cluster. We are using a converged environment so we have two commodity grade servers setup as a highly available StarWind cluster, then we have numerous Hyper-V compute nodes which access CSVs from the StarWind cluster. 

We are able to use Veeam to backup and replicate the VM files from the CSV/cluster.

We use off the shelf 10 GbE SPF+ modules and off the shelf 10 GbE switches.  With MPIO, we were able to create a redundant network infrastructure to support our SAN network. 

We were previously using Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, but that product was unreliable and practically unsupported by Microsoft. We were able to leverage our previous hardware capital investment and converted our infrastructure to use StarWind VSAN. The migration process was simple, and afterwards, we had a highly reliable SAN system. 

We've always wanted to deploy a software-defined storage system, as proprietary SANs do not meet our requirements. They are expensive and very inflexible. StarWind has been excellent.

The highly available feature between two nodes works without any issues. We have practiced DR scenarios and our CSV/cluster has always stayed online. The software has the ability to "elect" a master after a failure of one or two nodes, then it will resync after that without issue.

The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete.

The ability to use off the shelf hardware (servers, RAID cards, SSDs, etc.) is also invaluable in terms of cost and flexibility. 

A duplication feature inside of a CSV would be very useful. I'm sure there are a lot of duplicated blocks on a CSV that have 75 VMs of Windows Server.

StarWind relies on the underlying OS to manage the "SAN files" whether that would be a RAID volume, software RAID (such as LVM), etc. It would be useful if StarWind could incorporate the actual physical drive management inside of the solution, similar to Storage Spaces Direct.

A web interface for management and StarWind SNMP MIBs would also be very useful.  

One year.

The solution is very stable.  We have tested storage network outages with failure of one or two nodes. The solution is able to stay online or repair itself with ease. 

The storage is as salable as your underlying storage. If you are using hardware RAID cards, then you are somewhat limited for expansion, etc. It is still much better than proprietary SANs. 

Support has been very good. I regularly schedule off hours support sessions and their team has never complained. 

We previously used Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct but had numerous reliability issues with the solution. It was definitely not ready for a production environment. 

Setup was somewhat complex, but StarWind works with you the entire way and handles nearly all of the setup. 

We worked directly with StarWind. The experience was excellent. 

Less than one year. 

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. 

We had thought about proprietary SANs, but those didn't fit our requirements for cost and flexibility. 

StarWind Virtual SAN, along with two Fujitsu Primergy servers, forms the backbone of our hyper-converged solution. This storage, network, and compute solution is used for our Hyper-V cluster. From this cluster, we run all of our virtual servers, which in turn run our business-critical infrastructure. This includes domain controllers, file servers, database servers, application servers, and everything to support it.

We once operated with a physical SAN, several servers, along with the networking equipment and the required fiber-channel infrastructure.

StarWind Virtual SAN allowed us to eliminate the need for any physical SANs. We also got rid of the expensive fiber-channel equipment. Now, we just have two servers that form the StarWind nodes and that's it!

All of our storage, networking that includes 1GB and 10GB Ethernet, and compute power are all housed in the StarWind Virtual SAN solution. 

It's simple and very reliable.

The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business.

Presenting Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) from StarWind Virtual SAN to Hyper-V simplifies my storage management and reduces costs vs having a physical SAN.  

The solution has matured and I have no points for improvement.  

We have had StarWind Virtual SAN for nearly nine years.

I've now been using StarWind Virtual SAN for over nine years. While I have had underlying hardware go bad during this time, the Virtual SAN never failed. I have replaced an entire hardware node with zero downtime. It's rock solid.  

Prior to adopting StarWind Virtual SAN, I had multiple Dell Equallogic SAN devices.  When it was time to replace the Equallogic with new hardware, the costs were unjustifiable after learning about and evaluating StarWind Virtual SAN.  

Communicate with StarWind, they will work with you and your team to size a solution that works for you.  

Our organization was using physical storage platforms where we were facing slowness issues, and the cost of a conventional platform was high. 

We heard about the solution from one of our partners, and we got a demo of the product. 

The core features of the product resolved our issues, like high availability and integration of the solution with the virtual platforms. 

The StarWind Virtual SAN solution is cheap compared to conventional physical storage platforms. StarWind Virtual SAN is a good product when it comes to virtualization.

StarWind Virtual SAN helps us to improve our organization as most of our infrastructure is on the virtualization platform. 

StarWind Virtual SAN helped us in the integration with the virtualization platforms. By using common X86 servers instead of pricey proprietary hardware, StarWind Virtual SAN lowers the cost of storage infrastructure.

It is straightforward to configure, monitor, and administer the storage infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN's intuitive administration interface.

When their data storage requirements increase, enterprises may quickly enhance storage capacity with the help of StarWind Virtual SAN without having to pay additional fees for specialized storage gear.

There are different features that helped our organization as compared to conventional storage platforms. These include:

Scalability. Without the need for any downtime, enterprises can simply grow their storage infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN by adding new servers or disks to the current infrastructure.

Flexibility. A variety of deployment options, including hyper-converged infrastructure, two-node cluster configurations, and conventional SAN designs, are supported by StarWind Virtual SAN.

Performance. The usage of RAM and SSD caching, as well as the capability to offload storage traffic from the network using RDMA technology, allow StarWind Virtual SAN to operate at a high-performance level.

Cost-effectiveness. By using common X86 servers instead of pricey proprietary hardware, StarWind Virtual SAN lowers the cost of storage infrastructure.

Usefulness. StarWind Virtual SAN offers a straightforward and user-friendly administration interface that makes it simple to set up, keep track of, and administer the storage infrastructure.

The interface of the management console of the StarWind Virtual SAN is complex, and it's difficult for the novice user to interact with the management having less knowledge or training in the product. 

The troubleshooting guide of the product is also for the technical resources. 

The product needs to improve its features in terms of customer support and the management interface. The improvements in the management interface for the product help the user to work with the storage node having less knowledge or interaction with the product.

I have been using the StarWind Virtual SAN solution for the last six months.

The solution is being used to simulate physical SAN scenarios in a ESXi environment as a platform to demo various solutions to clients.   

StarWind SAN is an amazingly versatile product that eliminates the need to acquire an expensive physical SAN.  

In addition to ESXi, StarWind VLAN can also be deployed in other various platforms such as Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, and Linus KVM.  

StarWind vSAN allows us to start with a two-node resilient system that can be scaled up, down, or out. Even the free version of the product is very feature-rich. 

The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems. Customer response and satisfaction have greatly improved. 

StarWind SAN is an amazingly versatile product. We do not need to acquire an expensive physical SAN. In addition to ESXi, StarWind VLAN can be deployed in other platforms (Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, and Linus KVM). StarWind vSAN allows us to start with a two-node resilient system that can be scaled up, down, or out. Even the free version of the product is very feature-rich.

We like that it has the ability to mimic physical SAN environments. We able to scale up, down, or out and has an enterprise-level feature set.       

The configuration can a bit cumbersome. There is a CLI learning curve for which limited documentation exists.

I've been using the solution for two years.

The product is highly stable and available on multiple platforms.

This product is ideal for an SMB.

Technical support has been good.

Positive

We previously used Synology, which was going to EOL.

The solution offers a super easy setup.

We set up the solution with in-house staff with storage expertise.

The product offers a super low cost of entry.

We've also looked into VMware. 

This tool allows my team to be able to deploy NAS solutions in real-time, virtually, so that we can test those solutions quickly and easily before they are needed to be deployed in the real world.  

The user interface for this application is amazing. It's very easy to learn from the beginning and it has a great introductory period that allows you to get used to everything that the software has to offer. 

I can also say that another big advantage of this application is the amazing customer support that they offer. They are able to answer your questions very quickly, and they are always available at the most important times.

The solution has a great hypervisor storage platform. This saves the costs of having to deploy a physical environment to test. It also allows my team to work from anywhere at any time, which is important in the current times when remote work is vital to the proper workflow at our company.

Having large support for filesystems is important to our organization, as we sometimes use proprietary filesystems like WekaFS for some of the tasks, especially in the era of Exascale computing. Having support for additional features like importing filesystems and being able to do some testing with them is important. Besides not being able to use any filesystem, I do not have any additional cons. 

I've used the solution for one year.