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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 198 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews
    • 4,786 Views
    • 3,063 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, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.

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    To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: September 2025).
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    September 2025
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    Helped 867,445 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
    7.7
    Number of Reviews
    198
    Ranking in other categories
    Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (5th)
     

    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

    "It has automated a lot of workloads. It has automated us from ticketing a large number to a very small number."
    "Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure."
    "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."
    "It is a unique product with simplified setup and independent control over storage and compute."
    "Stability is one of the things we absolutely have to have, because if the HCI is down, our assembly lines are down, and that could potentially lead to our customer being down. If our customer is down, that's $10,000 a minute; and any time the assembly line is down, that could potentially lead to overtime. We don't get to charge one and a half times for something we billed just because you happened to build it on overtime. Any technology we bring in, has to be built for what I call "three in the morning." It can't be built for whenever everybody's in the plant, everybody can watch it, and everybody can babysit. It has to be built for three a.m. when you've got a skeletal staff there, and you just have to know that it's just running. As I stand here, right now, I don't have to check my phone, I don't have to check my email. I know it's running. Period"
    "It allows me to move a VM set and require extra performance. I can easily move them onto it and have it just run."
    "It is highly scalable. Their support is also extremely good."
    "It is easy to administrate the solution, and the company handles its technical support well."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros
    "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."
    "It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."
    "With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability."
    "StarWind Virtual SAN is essentially hardware agnostic, allowing us to build out a specific hardware layer based upon the customer's unique requirements."
    "The features that I found most valuable are ease of use of the software that StarWind offers - with the first setup being a bit painful."
    "The fact that we can expand our storage and add on to our compute nodes easily and how amazing the StarWind technical support team is really adding value to our purchase."
    "The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."
    "The best feature is its ease of installation and integration within a current infrastructure."
    More StarWind Virtual SAN pros
     

    Cons

    "There have been some drive type of issues where we have to apply a new code level. Storage nodes kick certain drives until they act as though they have failed when really they haven't. You just have to reinsert them, then they go on about their happy way. It's sort of a bug."
    "I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."
    "I would like to see the implementation process improved."
    "I'd like to see some additional graphics capabilities because I'd like to look at some virtual desktop integration for CAD software."
    "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."
    "If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."
    "I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."
    "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."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons
    "Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
    "The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen."
    "At this moment, I have not seen a return on investment with StarWind Virtual SAN."
    "High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."
    "In the next release, Starwind should include enhanced integration with cloud services for more seamless hybrid cloud operations. Advanced analytics and reporting tools would improve monitoring and decision-making."
    "I wish the sync after a failure, such as hardware failure or power-related issues, for example, was faster."
    "I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
    "Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limited vSphere expertise."
    More StarWind Virtual SAN cons
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "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 licensing fees are renewed annually."
    "You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
    "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."
    "Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
    "This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."
    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."
    "For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
    "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 cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."
    "The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."
    "I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."
    "I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."
    "The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
    More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice
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    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    No data available
    Computer Software Company
    16%
    Manufacturing Company
    10%
    Financial Services Firm
    8%
    Government
    8%
     

    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 Business159
    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?
    I had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for testing purposes, so there was no cost involved during my evaluation. That made i...
    See all answers
    What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
    One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it, I had access only to the free version, which required using PowerShell scripts ...
    See all answers
     

    Comparisons

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    Compared 17% of the time
    Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
    Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN
    Compared 14% of the time
    StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
    StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN
    Compared 13% of the time
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN Logo
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN
    Compared 11% of the time
    More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors
     

    Product Reports

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