NetApp HCI [EOL] vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

NetApp and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 88% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews

88% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual SAN

Read 212 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews

8,792 Views
5,363 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp HCI [EOL]

StarWind Virtual SAN

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and StarWind Virtual SAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI.

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Buyer's Guide

HCI

June 2026

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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 HCI [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind Virtual SAN

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

212

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)

Featured Reviews

Massimiliano Bartolozzi

Chief Information Officer at Lucart S.p.A.

Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022

Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.

Read full review

Jccerong Heron

System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs

The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is highly scalable, and their support is also extremely good."

"Scalability was another thing I was looking at. The solution, by its very nature, is designed to be expandable and flexible, so you don't have to buy performance you don't need today, but you're also not stuck with something you can't expand."

"It is easy to administrate the solution, and the company handles its technical support well."

"The most valuable feature is the convergence."

"The solution has generally affected storage performance in our organization by adding a high-performance storage option into the environment."

"The most valuables features of it are the deduplication and the compaction because the ratios are much better than what we normally get on our FAS storage."

"HCI has helped with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds for the last year. It's faster and more reliable with minimal downtime, as it doesn't require any maintenance."

"Everything we've moved over runs two times faster and in some cases, a lot faster, far more than twice, which our users noticed."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros

"Since StarWind's solution has served us very well over the last two years already, I would recommend it."

"StarWind Virtual SAN allowed us to increase the fault tolerance of our servers, which resulted in greater user loyalty."

"When I did some tests with StarWind, I stopped looking for anything more."

"The Virtual SAN product has greatly improved the organization's infrastructure by allowing us to create a scalable, highly-available, and cost-effective storage system."

"StarWind Virtual SAN can improve an organization's storage infrastructure by providing high availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, performance, and ease of use."

"The most important thing is that the vendor keeps developing and enhancing the solution to include more robust features."

"Ease of installation, configuration, and management."

"The license price is one of the cheapest in the market."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"I would like for them to fall a little closer to like the VMware release model. The new features and new solutions tend to come from the VMware side. I would like for NetApp to follow along closely with VMware's release schedule."

"I would like to have more variety, like GPU cards."

"In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."

"Its stability is very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crash."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

"HCI has not enabled us to consolidate workloads or break down silos and has not increased application performance. It has also not resulted in more efficient use of compute resources."

"There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management."

"Unfortunately, the solution has not reduced our hypervisor footprint."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons

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

"At this moment, I have not seen a return on investment with StarWind Virtual SAN."

"The GUI deserves a little love."

"An improvement for StarWind Virtual SAN would be to have an updated admin console."

"I think the setup could be streamlined a bit."

"The documentation could be better."

"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."

"It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."

"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."

"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."

"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."

"The licensing fees are renewed annually."

"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."

"Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."

"The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."

"The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."

"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Marketing Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	169
Midsize Enterprise	56
Large Enterprise	34

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is acceptable for now, but I hope in the future we can find a better offer.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

StarWind Virtual SAN can be improved by adding a certificate with the virtual switch in Hyper-V, reducing the license cost, and not having a minimum of 3 TB requirement.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?

My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is for clustering in our store, specifically using Windows OS and Hyper-V for the virtual machine. In our store, we have services for our customers, and I ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 26% of the time

VxRail vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

VMware vSAN vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 12% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 10% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 6% of the time

More NetApp HCI [EOL] Competitors

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 14% of the time

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 7% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 7% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 5% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp HCI [EOL]

July 2026

Download NetApp HCI [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

June 2026

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

StarWind SAN & NAS

Overview

NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

NetApp

StarWind Virtual SAN offers robust, scalable solutions for high availability in VMware and Hyper-V environments, providing real-time data replication and seamless infrastructure integration.

StarWind Virtual SAN stands out for high availability, impressive performance, and smooth integration with existing systems. Its real-time data replication capabilities minimize downtime and boost operational efficiency. Users appreciate the platform's cost-effectiveness and compatibility with diverse hardware, allowing for seamless deployment across hyper-converged infrastructures and data redundancy setups. Despite the strong feature set, calls for a more user-friendly setup and interface are common, alongside requests for clearer documentation and a web-based management interface.

What are the most notable features?

High Availability: Ensures continuous operation with real-time replication.
Seamless Integration: Works smoothly with existing IT infrastructure.
Scalability: Adapts to changing capacity needs easily.
Cost-Effectiveness: Reduces traditional SAN system expenses.
Energy Efficiency: Saves on power consumption with optimized functionality.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Reduced Maintenance: Minimizes IT staff involvement, lowering costs.
Enhanced Performance: Facilitates efficient data handling.
Operational Efficiency: Decreases downtime, increasing productivity.
Flexibility: Supports various IT configurations and strategies.

In industries like small businesses, StarWind Virtual SAN is implemented to replace costly SAN systems, ensuring uptime and strong performance. It's leveraged for hyper-converged infrastructure, failover clustering, and backup strategies, meeting diverse IT demands from hosting virtual machines to data migration.

StarWind

Sample Customers

American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

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