We performed a comparison between Azure Stack HCI and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."StarWind allows us to move virtual machines from one physical host to another, which greatly reduces the downtime required for maintenance."
"VSAN works great; it's very easy to install, configure, and manage."
"The vSAN provides full redundancy for storage while reclaiming some rack space."
"The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."
"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."
"Their support goes above and beyond with the integration of their software."
"Their support staff is comprised of true experts who can also communicate clearly."
"The ease of reaching the support team and their promptness for support is great."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."
"In my hybrid cloud setup, there are three features I've found very efficient. The first is software-defined networking. Similar to Azure where you create virtual networks and software load balancing, Azure Stack HCI lets you configure them with a drag-and-drop experience on the on-premises cluster. That's one of the good feature."
"The solution has the latest processor."
"The redundancy of two identical nodes that can run alone allows us to have truly "no single point of failure" in our computing and primary storage infrastructure."
"What makes it valuable is the high-availability. In the education field, when you've got students in classrooms, any loss of service disrupts the lessons to a point that the whole lesson is affected. For part of the business which isn't business-critical, to have a little bit of a hiccup wouldn't be such a big thing, but here, it's the high availability of service that is important."
"Servers came pre-configured for our environment and as soon as they were in the rack, Starwind got them up and running."
"The most valuable aspect of StarWind is the all-in-one solution that they provide."
"The easy way everything can be configured and ready to run in less than a day is great."
"The software is great. It's very easy to understand. I've not delved into any of the command-line stuff, but there's no real need to script it. Since it went in, pretty much the only thing that I have needed to do is increase device image sizes and that process is very straightforward."
"The hosts came preconfigured, and it was plug-and-play."
"The StarWind array has greatly improved our workflow internally as it is quite easy to use and provides robust features that allow us to provide anything our clients need quickly and efficiently."
"I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal."
"An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration."
"For improvement, I would like to see how the software determines which networks to use for which purpose. It seems like the naming terminology changes a bit from here to there."
"There is no IPv6 support. That is our only issue at this time."
"Management of VSAN itself could be improved. A Web UI for management would be great rather than an application installation. StarWind is testing a command center virtual appliance that I have installed in my environment."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
"This product would benefit from having automated alerting functionality."
"A web management interface would be good, especially for those coming from other solutions that have one."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement. Since I've been working very closely with this product, there are many areas, especially in software-defined networking. We had to improve multiple areas because we depended on the service fabric cluster to manage the software-defined network. That means we're already running a hypervisor inside a VM, and we're managing the control plane of the software-defined network. That's another cluster. So, multiple layers make the complexity more. So, from an operational perspective, it's very difficult to manage."
"We faced multiple problems with the product’s stability."
"The product's initial setup phase can be a bit complex, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Possible new features could be CSV-level snapshot capability, Veeam integration, and maybe a more straightforward setup. Granted, you don't have to worry about setups with the HCA, but if you want to implement StarWind vSAN in a lab to test it is a tedious setup process."
"The only thing I have run into is that I did want to add more hard drives into the host, so that we could look at doing a RAID 10, and the hard drive prices were pretty expensive... that's pretty nit-picky and I don't think it has anything to do with StarWind itself. I think it's more on whomever they work with for their hardware."
"I wish I understood what goes into the StarWind software a little bit better. To me, it's kind of magic the way some of it works. As an IT professional, you don't really want things to be magic. I do wish there was a little more "Here's how it works." There could be more documentation given to administrators..."
"It would be nice if the software told you a new version was available and prompted you to do the upgrade to keep everything up to date."
"The only issue we have seen is with the StarWind Server Manager. We have had to continually reboot the server in order to use it."
"The only issues are when Hyper V itself has limitations and I'd love to see support or enhancement in the area of direct-attached GPU cards."
"We haven't had to use the ProActive Premium Support feature much yet. But they contacted me one time because there was a glitch on one server, a networking issue... I have not seen the problem since."
"I would request that the terms and conditions be reviewed and made more acceptable to corporate security so that we could finally turn on the proactive support feature, as it is included with our support agreement."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
Azure Stack HCI is ranked 17th in HCI with 3 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 6th in HCI with 65 reviews. Azure Stack HCI is rated 8.4, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of Azure Stack HCI writes "Performs well, provides good features, and has the latest processor". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". Azure Stack HCI is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Azure Stack HCI vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
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