DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and StarWind Virtual SAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable feature of DataCore SANsymphony SDS is its high availability. This solution also exhibits good performance and has high stability.""The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites.""During the maintenance periods, on any part of the storage or VMware migration, we have had no downtime.""The use of the RAM cache allows you to speed up the writing and reading of data while also allowing for a possible increase in performance by increasing the RAM on the servers.""DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable.""It's a software storage solution that can scale as we like. There is also has a parallel feature that enhances the performance of the storage solution. We can separate storage and computing, and we can scale these two parts of the platform to meet business needs efficiently.""SANsymphony is flexible, with many potential options for implementation. SANsymphony's can be used with VMware, Hyper-V, or even with a hypervisor agnostic approach. It can also be used for strictly physical non-virtualized solutions.""Mirroring is the most valuable feature because I can provide a high-level of service and optimize the use of obsolete storage."

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"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.""High Availability is the best feature of product.""It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly.""StarWind SANs come with outstanding support.""The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run.""The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing.""StarWind support has been great in helping resolve other issues not caused by their software.""The product has improved the ability to mimic physical SAN environments to demo scenarios and troubleshoot problems."

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Cons
"I'd like to see the company make the renewal of the software cheaper.""Problem detection could be easier. It should help customers identify problems very quickly because it's not easy to analyze on the platform today.""I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names.""Datacore is developing a new WebUI with new dashboards. It is a good idea as the classic GUI is lacking dashboards.""If you're dealing with big databases or transactional databases, it might not be the best-suited solution. The design of DataCore's solution isn't oriented towards this type of data.""Right now, the version used is run on Microsoft Windows Server. Having a Linux version or even an appliance would be better as it would eliminate the use of additional licensing for another piece of hardware.""There is no way of quickly matching the exact size of a vDisk to a disk pool.""When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."

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"Ongoing improvements in read and write performance would help meet increasingly demanding workloads.""There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA.""I'd love to see more clarification for us folks who are smart enough to do some damage yet not smart enough to use CLI.""This solution should be more self-sufficient, running without creating domains or failover clusters.""It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI.""The logs can also become very noisy when there is an issue, which is very infrequent.""Perhaps the developer should refine the product management through PowerShell.""I had issues locating the documentation that applied to my version of StarWind vSAN."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
  • "The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
  • "The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."
  • "Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
  • "Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
  • "This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."
  • "This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
  • "The solution is cost effective."
  • More DataCore SANsymphony Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
  • "We are happy with the price."
  • "The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
  • "The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
  • "When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
  • "The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
  • "The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
  • "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."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Good sizing is the basis for a stable and high-performance environment. It is important to plan in sufficient reserves. It can make sense to license a higher number of TB if this puts you in a better… more »
    Top Answer:It's difficult to say if something is missing in this solution. Maybe we'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony. We essentially use RAID5 for our SAS disk and SSD, and now we… more »
    Top Answer:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool”… more »
    Top Answer:The cost of this is less than you expect. Since they're selling a software stack, you do need to consider your own hardware costs.
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost-effective point… more »
    Ranking
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    Average Words per Review
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    Rating
    9.5
    Views
    4,798
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    Reviews
    103
    Average Words per Review
    596
    Rating
    9.6
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    DataCore Virtual SAN
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    Learn More
    Overview

    Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

    StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

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    Sample Customers
    Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Non Profit27%
    Government11%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Analyst Firm5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Government6%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business49%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise43%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    Buyer's Guide
    DataCore SANsymphony vs. StarWind Virtual SAN
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 4th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 53 reviews while StarWind Virtual SAN is ranked 1st in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 182 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.2, while StarWind Virtual SAN is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of DataCore SANsymphony writes "Robust with good replication and access protection ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind Virtual SAN writes "Excellent support, great performance, and good redundancy". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, StorMagic SvSAN, Red Hat Ceph Storage and VxRail, whereas StarWind Virtual SAN is most compared with VMware vSAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, StorMagic SvSAN, Red Hat Ceph Storage and HPE SimpliVity. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. StarWind Virtual SAN report.

    See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best HCI vendors.

    We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.