StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Reviews

CSVs require the storage to be configured through iSCSI, even though the storage is local. It imparts a small performance hit that's easily overshadowed by the performance increase from getting off 1GB ethernet. The Virtual SAN setup also requires more actual storage than a traditional SAN. My two-node cluster means I need double the amount of physical storage before any RAID is taken into account. A two-node cluster with RAID 1 means one-quarter of the storage you purchase is available. Even though the support was great, getting the same email three to four mornings a week with the same issue got a little disheartening.

The only thing that can use improvement is the StarWind Management Console and Command Center. The management console needs to be restarted each reboot, and you must manually reconnect to each node to see the status. If this could be an automated process or if it auto-connects when you start the program, that would be fantastic. The Command Center is a great tool, but it stores the ISOs in one of the CSVs, meaning that each ISO uses a lot of storage space compared to one copy. Since each node runs RAID-5 and the two nodes are replicated using the StarWind software, we are essentially using over three times the storage. Also, it doesn't feel like the Command Center adds anything compared to using the OS's Hyper-V or Failover Cluster managers.

The only issue we have seen is with the StarWind Server Manager. We have had to continually reboot the server in order to use it. This can be frustrating at times when you want to quickly log in and make changes on the fly. I wish there was a way to make the server more stable so that we don't have to perform a reboot every time. Honestly, we do not have too many complaints. The best part about StarWind is the customer support. The guys on the team are great and have been willing to work with me at any time of the day as well as on the weekends.