NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Storage (1st), Cloud Backup (9th), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)

StarWind Storage Appliance

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

NAS (14th), All-Flash Storage (30th)

Featured Reviews

Madhusudan Srinivasmurthy

System Engineer at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler

NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own. ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center. Everything is in one channel. It's possible without the technology, but it's more time-consuming. NetApp saves us a lot of time, and the administration is simpler.

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Kishore CA

Senior Engineering Assistant at Bharat Electronics Limited

Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes.

The only drawback is that it takes a bit of time during initial synchronization, especially after restarting the environment. This is a potential area of improvement. There's a synchronization time, but it takes time. Initially, when we start the first environment deployment, it starts synchronizing between the storage. So, it is taking time. One thing is that even when you restart. Let's assume that the synchronization is completed and the storage is synchronized. Both storages are fully synchronized, and it is in sync mode. Now, if we want to restart both nodes, there is a case for maintenance purposes. You took both nodes for maintenance, and we rebooted it. Then, it should not synchronize again. It should be a checksum. And if there is a checksum match, there should be no synchronization again. So, one thing that should be taken care of. Another thing is that I used freeware- the community version, free license, which we deployed using PowerShare. In that case, it was very difficult to bring back another node when one node was faulty. Let's assume that both the nodes are working fine. And we found one node faulty. And we destroyed all the volumes in that and tried to bring it back. So that was a difficult factor. The final solution is that we were not able to bring back the failed node. So, we reconstructed a new data source for that. That is another drawback. In future releases, I would like to see the integration with VMware or some other things as a plugin model for VMware.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The ability to see things going back and forth has been quite useful."

"In terms of administration, the portal which provides the dashboard view is an excellent tool for operations. It gives you volume divisions, usage rates, which division is using how much data, and more. The operations portal is fantastic for the support team."

"Replication to the cloud is the most valuable feature. Deduplication and compression are also very important to us. We are in the process of adopting to the cloud. We are going to AWS and we are trying to do a safety technician call out with integration to the cloud. NetApp allows us to move some of the volume to the cloud, at the same time that we continue providing the cloud services that we have on premises."

"NetApp's Cloud Manager automation capabilities are very good because it's REST-API-driven, so we can completely automate everything. It has a good overview if you want to just have a look into your environment as well."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We started with a small pilot and we then moved to production with no downtime at all."

"One thing I have noticed is that it is very simple to move the data where we need to move it, delete it, or archive it if we need to archive it to StorageGRID."

"We're able to use the SnapMirror function and SnapMirror data from our on-prem environment into Azure. That is super-helpful. SnapMirror allows you to take data that exists on one NetApp, on a physical NetApp storage platform, and copy it over to another NetApp storage platform. It's a solid, proven technology, so we don't worry about whether data is getting lost or corrupted during the SnapMirror."

"Snapshots are one valuable feature within ONTAP, but CVO's appeal is that it acts just like the on-prem solution. It's the same OS, but in the cloud. We can continue to use ONTAP as we did on-premise."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

"They call us when monitoring shows a possible issue and are very flexible in working with our schedule to troubleshoot when it is convenient for us."

"We are able to easily back up our data and send it to an offsite location."

"We saw an ROI. We have saved both time and money by using it."

"Another good feature is that you can pause the appliance if you want to move it from one location to another and then once it's moved you can resume it, this way you can physically move the whole cluster or storage without any downtime. Its really easy to use, if you have a good foundation in storage and clustering then you will need less then one hour to figure out how to operate it."

"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."

"I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."

"The integration is excellent."

"Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy."

More StarWind Storage Appliance pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in tier one support, especially with potential language barriers and communication challenges."

"I would like to have more management tools. They are difficult to work with, so I would like them to be a bit more user-friendly."

"It definitely needs improvement with respect to clustering and with respect to more collaborative integrations with Azure. Right now, we have very limited functionalities with Azure, except for storage. If CVO could be integrated with Azure that would help. When there is any sort of maintenance happening in the cloud, it disrupts the service in Cloud Volumes ONTAP."

"Some of the licensing is a little kludgy. We just created an HA environment in Azure and their licensing for SVMs per node is a little kludgy. They're working on it right now."

"Cloud Volumes ONTAP's interface could use an overhaul. Sometimes you have to dig around in Cloud Manager a little bit to find certain things. The layout could be more intuitive."

"Something we would like to see is the ability to better manage the setup and tie it to our configuration management database. We manage our whole IT infrastructure out of that database."

"NetApp CVO needs to have more exposure and mature further before it will have greater acceptance."

"The encryption and deduplication features still have a lot of room for improvement."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."

"StarWind should improve the synchronization time of its product. There should be a standard operating procedure (SOP) for synchronization to reduce the time it takes."

"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."

"The dashboard features are not in the free version."

"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."

"With StarWind Storage Appliance, it would be better to have an overall easier setup with a little bit of configuration changes since, currently, even a small mistake may cause the setup process to go wrong."

"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."

"They offered onsite installation, but we chose to do it ourselves. That took longer and was more work for us but saved us a ton of money in the end."

More StarWind Storage Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For NetApp it's about $20,000 for a single node and $30,000 for the HA."

"Our licensing is based on a yearly subscription. That is an additional cost, but because of the storage efficiencies that the NetApp gives, even with the additional cost of the NetApp license, you still end up saving money versus straight Azure native for storage. It's definitely worth it."

"It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."

"The deal with the seller was acceptable; the pricing is reasonable."

"The pricing could be improved. It is a good product, but it is very expensive for me."

"Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."

"For enterprise customers, it's a very cost effective. But in the SMB segment, yeah, pricing is a little bit challenge for your time."

"Cost is a big factor, because a lot of companies can't afford enterprise grade equipment all the time. They skimp where they can. I would recommend that they improve the cost."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

"It costs about 50,000 euros."

"We found that the price of StarWind was very good compared to VMware or Nutanix."

"With StarWind Storage Appliance, the payments made towards the licensing part of the product are on a per-node basis, making it cost-effective for us to use the solution in our company."

"I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten."

"On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."

"StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."

"The cost is determined by various factors, including the amount of terabyte storage you require, the number of nodes you want to purchase, and the duration of your maintenance agreement"

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

48%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

What do you like most about StarWind Storage Appliance?

I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Storage Appliance?

I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten.

What needs improvement with StarWind Storage Appliance?

StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one.

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Product Reports

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

StarWind Storage Appliance

Download StarWind Storage Appliance product report

Also Known As

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

No data available

Overview

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

For SMB and Enterprises who are looking for high performance primary storage for server virtualization, VDI, database and Big Data scenarios, or inexpensive secondary backup tier, our solution is StarWind Storage Appliance. It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, and associated software into an easily scalable storage platform.

Additionally, the appliance features an optional gateway to Azure public cloud, which helps to implement an effective Disaster Recovery plan or meet regulatory requirements. StarWind SA scales up by adding individual disks and flash modules, or JBODs, while adding ready controller nodes allows scaling out.

StarWind SA targets those, who need high-performance primary storage or secondary storage for backup. In case there is a whole virtualization infrastructure to build from scratch, StarWind HCA will come in handy. Otherwise, if all the required hardware is present, StarWind Virtual SAN will be enough to build a high-performance virtualization setup.

StarWind

Sample Customers

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. StarWind Storage Appliance