StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs StorMagic SvSAN comparison

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StarWind Logo
4,542 views|1,484 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
StarWind Logo
1,139 views|318 comparisons
98% willing to recommend
StorMagic Logo
1,159 views|880 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and StorMagic SvSAN 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. StorMagic SvSAN Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,415 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
"The most important feature is the ability to experience the loss of one node or one storage device, and not lose the entire cluster.""This product now allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN.""It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product.""The StarWind products have enabled our organization to modernize stations where larger and more expensive equipment was not an option.""The most valuable feature is the fact that the nodes are Active/Active, and allow us to do upgrades on any node without any downtime.""I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN.""Integration with Microsoft clustering has been perfect, allowing us to leverage our investment in MS server licensing to the fullest.""Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"The low cost of this solution has also made a big difference in our budget, which has been very helpful.""The solution has easily deployed instances for multiple fast-paced projects.""The easy way everything can be configured and ready to run in less than a day is great.""However, StarWind HCA won us over in two areas: price and support. We were actually able to install an all-flash StarWind HCA for less than other vendors' spinning rust solutions! We were able to roll five years of warranty and support into the purchase price and still save thousands of dollars upfront.""The most valuable feature is the high-availability. We have three nodes, and all data will be synched instantly through all the nodes. Even if we had a disaster where two nodes failed, containing dozens of critical machines, almost automatically, all the loads would be run on the remaining node.""Customer service has been excellent. Any questions we have had have been answered quickly.""The solution has provided our company with a fully redundant virtual environment at half the cost of a traditional SAN implementation.""Product functionality and performance are wonderful."

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"It helps us prevent any data loss while working with the failover clusters.""StorMagic SvSAN is a very effective solution and the interface is good.""What I found most valuable in StorMagic SvSAN is integration. As a software-defined storage solution, it's also very easy to use and it's the trend in the market today. StorMagic SvSAN also made the customer happy because the customer could use his existing hardware with it. The customer had rack-mounted storage, so he didn't want to purchase a dedicated hardware for storage purposes. He just upgraded his hard disk drives.""The most valuable feature of StorMagic SvSAN is its high availability. We have not had any downtime or data loss. Business continuity is highly important.""It gives zero downtime and it works with two nodes rather than three nodes, unlike other solutions.""We compared two solutions for this use case, but we went with StorMagic because it had more capabilities than the others. It's also more reliable, especially in production environments that require availability and sustainability.""This synchronization is easy with StorMagic, and we can establish availability between servers.""StorMagic SvSAN's best feature is that it is platform agnostic."

More StorMagic SvSAN Pros →

Cons
"I would love to see more vendor selection to be available for the HCA/vSAN appliances.""For me, the product could be improved by it being made cheaper.""StarWind Command Center's single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V.""There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed.""The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works.""Updates seem to be non-existent.""The initial setup got a little confusing at a few points with differences between the VMware version in documentation vs the latest, etc.""I want to suggest that the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure needs to be reduced."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"The only area that surprised me had to do with the fact that each host runs a StarWind virtual machine used to maintain the health of the vSAN, which individually uses 24GB of memory per host. You should keep this in mind when determining the resources you will need when selecting hardware and components for your specific setup. If I knew that, I would have chosen to add more memory per host to make up for the use.""Over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me of those issues and effortlessly guided me through the process of correcting the issue with minimal effort on my part.""If I had to pick something to add to the product, it would be nice if you could have more than one user account on their command center VM.""Most meetings are done via Zoom, and I'm sure you could switch to a text based conversation if needed as they seem like a very accommodating team. It's not something I would worry about if you are a potential client.""I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers.""The only issue we have had was the issue of performance, however, that is only due to the fact that we purchased a mix of SSD and regular spindle drives, and restoring databases was slow as it was trying to restore the database using the spindle drives.""Not much can be improved, to be honest.""Updates need improvement."

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"If we want to want to replicate the VM to the cloud, or off-site, it does not allow it because of asynchronous. There is no option available.""There are two features missing: there's no REST API functionality, and there is no date duplication in it.""In the next release, StorMagic SvSAN should include multi-node clusters, which would allow storage spaces to be used more efficiently.""The only improvement area I can see is their licensing. For example, the memory caching feature is only available in an advanced license. Normally, it's in a standard license. It would be better if they had memory caching features in the product. Some backup features should also be in the product""In terms of what could be improved in StorMagic SvSAN, I don't have a major issue with it, but its user interface should be more customer-oriented.""The deployment of StorMagic SvSAN is very small. However, you need some time to do it. It's important to make a test deployment before the real deployment.""They should enable data compression deduplication features for the platform."

More StorMagic SvSAN Cons →

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 →

  • "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 →

  • "It's fairly cheap when compared to other options. But it can be improved as some features may not be available in the standard license. The vendor positions it as an edge product, so it isn't suitable to compare with VMware vSAN or Nutanix because that's another product altogether."
  • "The pricing of StorMagic SvSAN is fairly good because if you compare it with VMware, it's at a better price. This is an important thing to remember."
  • "The licensing cost is $7,000 per two nodes for two terabytes."
  • "70% cheaper than competitors and provides all the enterprise feature requirements at low cost."
  • "The price of the solution is reasonable. Our budget was two terabytes and the price met our use case well."
  • "The product has good pricing."
  • More StorMagic SvSAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines… more »
    Top Answer:I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. Also, consider the paid version if… more »
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the… more »
    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… more »
    Top Answer:I honestly don't have anything to complain about. Nothing is perfect, though, over the past three years, there were two… more »
    Top Answer:It helps us prevent any data loss while working with the failover clusters.
    Top Answer:They should enable data compression deduplication features for the platform.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    StorMagic
    Learn More
    Overview

    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.

    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. 

    StorMagic SvSAN is simple hyperconverged storage used to eliminate downtime. It provides high availability with two nodes per cluster, and boasts users among thousands of organizations to keep mission-critical applications and data online and available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

    SvSAN is a lightweight solution that has been designed specifically for small-to-medium-sized businesses and edge computing environments such as retail stores, manufacturing plants and even oil rigs at sea.

    SvSAN provides organizations with a simple, 'set and forget' solution that enables lightweight high availability as a virtual SAN (VSAN) with a witness VM that can be local, in the cloud, or as-a-service, and support up to 1,000 2-node clusters. It provides a low barrier to entry with capacity-based licensing and minimal hardware requirements, allowing organizations to use existing equipment. Plus, any IT professional can deploy and manage 1,000 sites as easily as 1, with automation tools and scripts.

    SvSAN gives organizations choice and control by allowing configurations of any x86 server models and storage types, even mixed within a cluster, while vSphere, Hyper-V or KVM hypervisors can be used. It is built to perform, with code that eliminates performance bottlenecks and caching features to boost performance and prevent over-provisioning. SvSAN accommodates future growth and technologies too, with support for containers and VMs, and allows compute and storage to be scaled easily and independently.

    SvSAN's additional features help to deliver 100% uptime with synchronous mirroring and no single point of failure, even with poor, unreliable networks, and non-disruptive hardware and software upgrades. Disaster protection is provided with capability for stretched clusters that reduce risk, plus extensive integrations with backup and DR providers and the option to add a third node to clusters. SvSAN also ensures data security with FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption, software RAID options and the elimination of split-brain risk.

    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    Sears Home and Franchise Business
    Sheetz Inc., Giant Eagle, RWE Renewables, Keiser Corp., TDK, Oxford University, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Rommelsbacher, Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort, Eugen Forschner GmbH
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Construction Company12%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Transportation Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Educational Organization7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company29%
    Manufacturing Company29%
    Import And Exporter14%
    Pharma/Biotech Company14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Healthcare Company8%
    Retailer7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise49%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise20%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise51%
    Buyer's Guide
    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StorMagic SvSAN
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StorMagic SvSAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,415 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews while StorMagic SvSAN is ranked 8th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 9 reviews. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6, while StorMagic SvSAN is rated 8.2. 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 StorMagic SvSAN writes "The best choice for performance and price". StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and HPE SimpliVity, whereas StorMagic SvSAN is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, DataCore SANsymphony, Veeam Backup & Replication and HPE StoreVirtual. See our StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StorMagic SvSAN 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.