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Portworx Enterprise vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

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Executive Summary

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

Portworx Enterprise
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Software Defined Storage (3rd), Data Storage for Kubernetes (1st)
StarWind Storage Appliance
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
NAS (20th), All-Flash Storage (34th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vishwanath Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer 3 at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Data management has become simpler and now supports flexible copies and retention decisions
The best feature is that we have integrated it with Kubernetes. When we have some servers that are going for patching or there is a hardware issue, I can replicate the data into other nodes very easily. I can use some pxctl commands and get the data replicated into other nodes which are healthy. That is the best feature. Managing the data after the initial setup is very easy in Portworx Enterprise. It is also easy to integrate with Kubernetes. We did utilize that functionality. In a disaster recovery scenario, Portworx Enterprise data recovery has been very effective. The only reason why we are moving from Portworx Enterprise to OpenEBS now is because of cost optimizations. I would classify this into two parts: my requirements and my operational efficiencies. My requirements are definitely met by Portworx Enterprise. Once my requirements were met, when I am doing any operational activity, any patching, purging, or any underlying node activities, it is easy for the operational team to manage Portworx Enterprise. They can simply give certain commands, get the underlying data transferred to other nodes, get the data cordoned, and they can take care of the underlying nodes. Portworx Enterprise has been very effective.
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

"A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, providing crucial data services and features required for enterprise applications."
"Portworx is a simple solution. It's similar to Pure Storage products. They're all easy to use and install. You need to have a little expertise with containers to use Portworx, but it will be no problem for you if you understand containers."
"Portworx is a great solution for managing container environments."
"In a disaster recovery scenario, Portworx Enterprise data recovery has been very effective."
"Portworx virtualizes the aspects of the underlying block storage. That is good because they can also use block storage for their future deployment instead of just NFS."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"Stateful applications are now more resilient and less susceptible to infrastructure-related disruptions, while storage management has become more consistent with our Kubernetes practices, leading to better disaster recovery readiness and faster application deployments."
"The best thing about Portworx is the Stork, they have called the VPS (Volume Replacement Strategy) and they also have topology awareness, and these are the three features I like."
"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."
"Cost is really something that attracts us to begin the journey with StarWind many years ago but then we simply realized that their solution works with superb performances and are really happy to stick to it."
"How they can offer all of this and 24x7 level support and provide the hardware at extremely affordable costs is beyond me."
"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."
"We are able to easily back up our data and send it to an offsite location."
"StarWind Storage Appliance is simpler and more effective than using Microsoft products. We chose it because it can be easily integrated with Microsoft."
"Their technical support team is excellent."
"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."
 

Cons

"The documentation could be better."
"Regarding pricing, I found that a couple of customers did not purchase the project because, at least in Spain, there are customers finding the pricing a little too high for the service they receive."
"As far as I know, Portworx Enterprise was a bit expensive when compared to OpenEBS."
"It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchasing backup separately."
"I think the vendor could provide more training for new users who may not be familiar with containers."
"The integration has room for improvement."
"I would like to see a more native mapping to mainframe-type systems."
"They have not integrated Portworx with Ondat since they are too focused now on Pure Storage APIs and not on users like us."
"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."
"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."
"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."
"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."
"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has two offerings. One is free, which is limited to only five nodes. The other is enterprise, which is a bit pricier."
"I'm not sure how the licensing was broken out, but I don't think our offering of the Portworx was more than USD $20,000."
"The price of Portworx Enterprise is high."
"The price is competitive, but it is too expensive when paired with Red Hat IBM."
"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"
"On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."
"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."
"StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."
"It costs about 50,000 euros."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Transportation Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portworx Enterprise?
Pricing is good as the functionalities of Portworx Enterprise are explainable. Pricing is bearable, but licensing is a little more complex.
What needs improvement with Portworx Enterprise?
The only reason why we are moving from Portworx Enterprise to OpenEBS now is because of cost optimizations.
What advice do you have for others considering Portworx Enterprise?
I have so much experience in Dynatrace and also I have experience in Grafana and in Kubernetes. Kubernetes is the last one that I have experience with. It has helped greatly. It is very beneficial....
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Sample Customers

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