StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and StarWind Virtual SAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Servers came pre-configured for our environment and as soon as they were in the rack, Starwind got them up and running.""Overall, the solution has improved our system's performance. I was concerned about the physical-to-virtual conversion of our database server. It's actually much faster now, as a virtualized host on this Hyper-V cluster.""The customer service has been the most valuable feature of the product to me.""Being able to upgrade machines and software during business operations just by switching nodes has been a huge improvement. We""We opted for 24-hour monitoring and support, which has already paid for itself.""The solution has easily deployed instances for multiple fast-paced projects.""The initial setup seems to be very straightforward.""I do like that I can manage StarWind with a console running on my local desktop."

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"The configuration is so much simpler than that of a traditional SAN with fewer points of failure to worry about.""StarWind SANs come with outstanding support.""It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly.""The management and monitoring have been very easy since the solution's dashboard is very simple and user-friendly.""The StarWind Virtual SAN management console is intuitive and easy to use.""For those basic uses, it's simple to set up and manage, and it seems to do a fine job.""The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business.""We test live failovers every week, and so far, everything has been running smoothly without anything unexpected."

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Cons
"A possible thing is perhaps a customer portal to schedule a time with support online via a calendar.""This product is not one hundred percent enterprise-ready, so it is more suitable for SMB.""That situation, where Dell EMC servers were going down, has been my only real difficulty... it ended up being something that the wider audience of Dell EMC was actually aware of as an issue. Neither the StarWind technicians nor the Dell EMC technicians were able to actually identify that problem sooner than a week or so... The communication between Dell EMC support and StarWind support, in that particular scenario, left something to be desired, for me. I did express those concerns to StarWind and they were very responsive to that.""It would be nice to have some kind of GUI interface implemented to give you an overall view of the system's health at a glance.""I think some performance metrics would be nice to see, especially on the storage side.""The response time is usually several hours after the issue occurred.""One area for improvement of the solution is that I had to get Windows, which I really didn't want because of the extra maintenance or overhead, as well as viruses, etc. It's going to take time for them to get their Linux to that point. They already have Linux but it's not as mature and they don't really support it on HCAs. They have it for individuals who want to use it on their servers, but not on HCAs.""Multi cluster support for their Command Console would be very beneficial. Currently, you can only work with a single cluster at a time. The console is new so I expect much growth in this area in the near future. The other area that could be improved is the tech support locale."

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"StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used.""Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users.""Perhaps the developer should refine the product management through PowerShell.""There is no Italian-language version of the software available.""The Command Center, a free guest VM for management and monitoring, leaves something to be desired. It could have more accurate real-time information and better reporting visuals, which seem to be an afterthought.""I'd prefer it if a remote console was provided.""We would like to see the documentation more fully developed.""I wish there was online support because email return takes a long time and a faster solution should be found."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."
  • "Its cost was reasonable."
  • "This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
  • "When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
  • "The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
  • "I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."
  • "The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
  • "We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
  • More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
  • "We are happy with the price."
  • "The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
  • "The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
  • "When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
  • "The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
  • "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 licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:StarWind's proactive support is my favorite feature.
    Top Answer:Keep in mind that StarWind VMs for the vSAN will take up 24GB of memory per host. If you do decide to go with StarWind, adjust your hardware configuration appropriately if you need those memory… more »
    Top Answer:I honestly don't have anything to complain about. Nothing is perfect, though, over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me… more »
    Top Answer: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”… more »
    Top Answer:The cost of this is less than you expect. Since they're selling a software stack, you do need to consider your own hardware costs.
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost-effective point… more »
    Ranking
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    1,132
    Comparisons
    320
    Reviews
    33
    Average Words per Review
    661
    Rating
    9.7
    Views
    4,798
    Comparisons
    1,502
    Reviews
    103
    Average Words per Review
    596
    Rating
    9.6
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    Learn More
    Overview

    For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA. 

    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.

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    Sample Customers
    Sears Home and Franchise Business
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Construction Company12%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Transportation Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Retailer6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise47%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    Buyer's Guide
    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Virtual SAN
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews while StarWind Virtual SAN is ranked 1st in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 182 reviews. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6, while StarWind Virtual SAN is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind Virtual SAN writes "Excellent support, great performance, and good redundancy". StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex, VMware vSAN, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN, whereas StarWind Virtual SAN is most compared with VMware vSAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, StorMagic SvSAN, Red Hat Ceph Storage and DataCore SANsymphony. See our StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Virtual SAN report.

    See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best HCI vendors.

    We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.