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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 200 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews
    • 4,856 Views
    • 3,059 Comparison Views
    100% willing to recommend
     

    Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI.

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    To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: October 2025).
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    October 2025
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    Helped 873,085 peers since 2012

    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
    32
    Ranking in other categories
    No ranking in other categories
    StarWind Virtual SAN
    Average Rating
    9.6
    Reviews Sentiment
    7.6
    Number of Reviews
    200
    Ranking in other categories
    Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
     

    Featured Reviews

    MB
    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
    Vladimir Simion - PeerSpot reviewer
    Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support
    The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.
    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

    "The ease of deployment is a positive feature that allows us to scale easily."
    "The NetApp Deployment Engine that comes with it makes the actual deployment and usage very easy. That's our primary focus and it's hyper-converged. That's something that we want to use as well."
    "The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained."
    "We're trying to move to a much more API-driven management of all of our products, and NetApp's product is, from all the SDS providers we have seen, the most fully-baked API out there."
    "The multi-vertical aspect is what is most valuable for us. The main reason we wanted a multi protocol was because Amazon was not able to provide us with access to the same data as we could get from Linux and Windows lengths. That was our value proposition for this solution."
    "It is highly scalable. Their support is also extremely good."
    "The solution integrates well with all the other applications that we use on our environment."
    "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."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros
    "StarWind allowed us to deploy highly available shared storage within our budget."
    "StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by giving us the flexibility and freedom to have more time for other projects."
    "We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment."
    "Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."
    "The iSCSI protocol is quite simple to configure."
    "The solution is also quite flexible. As an example, other vSAN solutions that we looked at had more stringent requirements regarding mixed HDD/SSD storage which wouldn't have worked in our environment."
    "Having the ability to migrate machines live in our environment was made possible by this software."
    "The ability to run a two-node cluster without a dedicated witness has made this an excellent product for small deployments, which is right on target for our needs in regional offices."
    More StarWind Virtual SAN pros
     

    Cons

    "I'm not a fan of how they don't log you out properly from some of their web tools for management."
    "The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."
    "In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."
    "The problem is that it needs to be much more stable, for example, when I want to do the upgrade to 1.7 that just released, I also need to issue a ticket to the support guy in India and he asked me to deploy another mlock. There are a lot of manual steps compared with other products."
    "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."
    "I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."
    "At the moment, I am not looking for new features. Quality of Service (QoS) and capacity efficiency are the two things that I want to resolve in my customer's environment. QoS improves the performance of each tenancy, and with capacity efficiency, the customer can achieve more capacity as compared to the normal capacity."
    "It is difficult to get acclimated to all the new features quickly. The onboard process could be improved to bring clients up to speed faster."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons
    "I see no need for major improvements but there could be some improvements in the form of notifications and the simplifying of maintenance mode."
    "The cluster configuration is time-consuming and tedious."
    "The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
    "A web management interface would be good, especially for those coming from other solutions that have one."
    "It would help if the manufacturer provided clearer and more detailed documentation, with explanations of how the application can be installed in various HA configurations."
    "There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."
    "Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible."
    "Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome."
    More StarWind Virtual SAN cons
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
    "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."
    "The price of the solution is okay but could improve."
    "The licensing fees are renewed annually."
    "Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
    "Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
    "You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
    "Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice
    "This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
    "For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
    "If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
    "This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
    "Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
    "We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear."
    "We are happy with the price."
    "This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
    More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice
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    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    No data available
    Computer Software Company
    17%
    Manufacturing Company
    10%
    Financial Services Firm
    8%
    Government
    7%
     

    Company Size

    By reviewers
    Large Enterprise
    Midsize Enterprise
    Small Business
    By reviewers
    Company SizeCount
    Small Business8
    Midsize Enterprise9
    Large Enterprise19
    By reviewers
    Company SizeCount
    Small Business162
    Midsize Enterprise54
    Large Enterprise33
     

    Questions from the Community

    Ask a question
    Earn 20 points
    What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
    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” acce...
    See all answers
    What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
    My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for StarWind Virtual SAN was okay.
    See all answers
    What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
    An improvement for StarWind Virtual SAN would be to have an updated admin console.
    See all answers
     

    Comparisons

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    Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
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    Compared 12% of the time
    StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
    StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN
    Compared 11% of the time
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN
    Compared 10% of the time
    More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors
     

    Product Reports

    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp HCI [EOL]
    October 2025
    NetApp HCI [EOL] reportDownload NetApp HCI [EOL] product report
    Buyer's Guide
    StarWind Virtual SAN
    October 2025
    StarWind Virtual SAN reportDownload 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 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.

    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
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    October 2025
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