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Panasas ActiveStor vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

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

Panasas ActiveStor
Ranking in NAS
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Storage Appliance
Ranking in NAS
20th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (34th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of Panasas ActiveStor is 1.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Storage Appliance is 1.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StarWind Storage Appliance1.9%
Panasas ActiveStor1.7%
Other96.4%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

MW
Project Manager at Realnux
A stable solution with good performance and bandwidth
The tool's setup is not difficult. The deployment is completed within two to three days and we would require three engineers to handle the process. First, we need to install the software which can take around two to three hours. Next, comes the configuration and connection to the central network which is complex. It can take about eight to ten hours to complete.
Kishore CA - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I am impressed with the tool's performance and bandwidth."
"The stability is excellent and we've found the product's performance to be very good."
"We've found the product to be quite flexible."
"Their technical support team is excellent."
"We love it and rely on it."
"StarWind Storage Appliance is simpler and more effective than using Microsoft products. We chose it because it can be easily integrated with Microsoft."
"We are able to easily back up our data and send it to an offsite location."
"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."
"The management interface is the most valuable feature for us."
"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."
"The integration with StarWind Storage Appliance is the most valuable."
 

Cons

"The solution is quite expensive."
"We have received complaints from customers that the tool is not easy to use. The tool's local technical service is slow. The solution is good for Linux customers and not for customers with other operating systems like Windows. The solution should provide storage without client software integration."
"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."
"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."
"StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one."
"The dashboard features are not in the free version. Today it is normal to have the full features in both versions and only pay for support."
"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."
"They could improve by providing integration with HP."
"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."
"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is reasonable."
"I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We found that the price of StarWind was very good compared to VMware or Nutanix."
"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"
"StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."
"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."
"It costs about 50,000 euros."
"On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Transportation Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

Also Known As

ActiveStor
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Mask Technology Center Airbus Argonne National Laboratory The University of Texas at Dallas School of Arts Technology and Emerging Communication Башнефть Boeing Bosch California Academy of Sciences Caltech Canon Case Western Reserve University Conoco Phillips Deluxe DirecTV Fairfield Technologies United States Federal Reserve Garvan Institute of Medical Research Goodyear Halliburton Harvard Medical School Honeywell In-Depth Geophysical Intel Kawasaki Lockheed Martin 3M Magseis Fairfield Mammal Studios The Man Group McLaren Mercedes-Benz MINES ParisTech NASA US Navy National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center NBCUniversal National Institutes of Health Nio National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Northrup Grumman Novartis Partners Healthcare Procter & Gamble PGS Pratt & Whitney Rutherford Appleton Lab Siemens Sim International Sinopec Solers Square Cnix TGS Toyota Motorsport GMBH Toppan Turner UMass Medical School United Technologies University of Georgia University of California Los Angeles University of Minnesota University of Notre Dame University of California San Diego Center for Microbiome Innovation Whiskytree
Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon
Find out what your peers are saying about Panasas ActiveStor vs. StarWind Storage Appliance and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.