StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Reviews

We are an MSP that offers IT services to SMB companies in our area. We wanted to branch out and start offering hosting services in the form of offsite backup and server. To achieve this we needed a highly available cluster of servers. We started off designing a typical cluster/SAN setup but decided that we wanted the simplicity of hyper-converged architecture instead. In researching HCA we found that StarWind offered exactly that as well of proactive monitoring support for the cluster. Having an extra set of eyes on the health of the equipment was a huge selling point.

StarWind has given us the ability to have a failover cluster without the complications of a SAN network. We are able to offer extra services to our customers that we haven't been able to in the past. Small companies can be wary of the large cloud providers so having a StarWind HCA cluster we were able to give our customers the ability to grow into the cloud while also staying with a company they have worked with and known for years. With StarWind's proactive monitoring we can go about our day helping our customers and not have to worry about our cluster's health.

The most valuable feature is its Proactive support. They monitor the health of the cluster and hardware and reach out if they see anything out of the norm. They will then work with us through the entire resolution process whether it be a hardware issue or an issue with the StarWind vSAN services. If the issue turns out to be hardware related they will then work with the hardware manufacturer and get any replacement parts needed. Their techs are also very knowledgeable and have always been able to resolve any issues without any kind of long drawn out escalation process no matter the time of day.  

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.  Currently, all of their tech support is located in eastern Europe so if you have any issues understanding thick accents it may be a little frustrating. With that being said they have never got frustrated with me asking them to repeat themselves, they've always been very patient.

We've been using it in full production for about seven months.

Stability has been good. We've had one issue with the StarWind service locking up causing full sync to be performed. During this sync, there wasn't any noticeable performance impact by our users.

If you provide your own switches instead of doing their direct connect option you should be able to scale this solution very well. If you go direct connect you are limited to 3 nodes.  Adding additional storage should be easy if you have available hard drive bays.

Tech support has been fantastic. Always willing to help no matter what time of day/night.  I've never had to have an issue escalated as the first contact tech has always been able to solve any issues/questions.

This is my first venture into the HCA world.

StarWind performed most of the initial setup for us. We racked the equipment and then they remoted in and configured everything. We did not have any existing VMs to migrate so it was a simple setup.

Cost is very reasonable and shouldn't catch anyone off guard if you've looked at other HCA devices.

We also looked at Nutanix, HP Simplivity, VxRails, and Scale.

Our primary use case of the HCA is to provide a Highly Available, clustered virtualization environment to house all of our internally operational VMs. 

We host all of our internal server infrastructure on the HCA utilizing Hyper-V as our virtualization platform. 

The performance of an all SSD storage array allows us to easily and quickly expand our interal servers as needed without worries of performance degradation.  

The largest benefit to our company was to finally be able to have a no single point of failure setup at a pricepoint that was below that of competing enteprise oriented solutions. 

The HCA appliance replaced aging hardware, formerly cluster-in-a-box solutions, at a savings of over $20,000.00 and provided increased performance and more redundancy. The pricing and discounts given by Starwind on the hardware were unmatched. 

The HCA solution provides increased redundancy in that all storage is duplicated between multiple servers with multiple arrays of drives, rather than depending upon a single storage solution. It also allows us to utilize more cost-effective storage solutions rather than being handcuffed to dual port SSD with their higher price points when the performance far exceeds our needs. 

If you stay with a two or three-node solution, the HCA allows you to eliminate implementing a redundant storage network switch solution providing tons of savings on top of the affordable HCA offering. 

Additionally, the server cluster manager web tool provided by Starwind provides fast information at a glance to give you a complete overview of all virtualization, compute, storage, memory, and network resources throughout your network in a single plane of glass. 

The support and automated monitoring is a huge improvement over our previous vendor's offerings as well. It truly feels like we have a point of escalation on any issues and that provides a large amount of comfort to our small team. 

Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks. 

Our only pain point has been dealing with the freight shipping initially not showing up when promised, then showing up unannounced, and then sending us some small fees afterward due to the fact that we made them wait (since we weren't expecting them). Starwind has taken care of all of the fees after the fact, however, and they were more than accomodating in resolving the situation. 

We would like more visibility into the reporting that Starwind uses to monitor our solution for errors. We'd like to be able to receive the same data and notifications that their team receives.

We have been using the HCA for almost one year.

So far, we have had zero downtime. 

The product is moderately scaleable. It should fit any SMB and works even in larger organizations. The product allows quick additional of multiple nodes. At a certain point, eventually your storage replication might be better served by dedicated sans rather than the VSAN, or it might be beneficial to check out the newer Storage Spaces in DataCenter edition when it comes to storage scaling up. However, I think the VSAN included with the cluster will meet most small and medium sized deployments by just adding more nodes with additional storage when needed. 

We used cluster-in-a-box from DataON. We switched as they were reaching the end of life and it did not provide an affordable solution to replace it.

The solution offers an easy setup. Support was there to hold hands as needed every step of the way, with a dedicated contact point who took us through the entire process. She was great!

We do not have any warnings to share. 

We looked at options from TrueNas, DataOn, Dell, and HPE. 

We use the StarWind HCA as the main solution for hosting all of our core VMs. 

We have about 20 Microsoft and Linux VMs that we are running on Hyper-V on the StarWind HCA. 

Our HCA is made up of two Dell servers running the StarWind VSAN software. The VMs that we have are mainly made up of general-purpose servers with a few other custom-use servers thrown in. 

We also use the HCA to host both of our domain controllers, although we don't have them in the cluster, they are still on the appliance. 

Having high availability has definitely improved the reliability of our infrastructure and made server maintenance much easier, which is a significant improvement for the organization. 

The low cost of this solution has also made a big difference in our budget, which has been very helpful. 

The reliability of the VSAN software has also been a big improvement in our infrastructure. 

The quality of support from StarWind has probably been the biggest improvement though as we went from having a relatively low level of support with our previous solution to having a truly top-tier support team at our disposal.

High availability with only two nodes has really been enormously valuable to us. Our infrastructure is relatively small and we really didn't need more than two nodes, however, for many reasons, we really needed to have high availability. Being able to accomplish that without extra hardware was huge. 

The ability to use whatever hypervisor that we wanted has also been very valuable to us. We were able to switch over to Hyper-V from VMWare and save on the licensing costs that we previously had with VMWare.

I really don't say this very much, however, I actually don't have many issues with this product. However, if I had to think of something, some people might not like the fact that a lot of the engineers tend to have relatively thick eastern European accents, and that might be an issue for some folks. 

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. It's not really a big deal, however, that would be a good addition.

I've used the solution for about six months.

It is extremely stable. I haven't had any issues at all. It's one of my favorite things about this solution.

It is extremely scalable.

Their customer service and support are top-notch. 

Positive

Our previous solution was very old and not really a good comparison. 

We switched due to the fact that the hardware needed to be refreshed and we needed high availability.

The initial setup was extremely easy and their support team was assisting through the whole process.

It was implemented through their support team and their level of expertise was extremely high.

We've seen an ROI of 100% to 150%

The setup cost and support contract was significantly cheaper with StarWind than with any of the other options that I evaluated.

We considered just buying new server hardware and staying with VMware. We also evaluated Scale and Nutanix.

I really can't recommend them enough. 

Their VSAN software is excellent. The ability to get a highly available setup with just two nodes is fantastic. Their support is top-notch, and from a cost perspective, they blew everybody else out of the water. Give them a call; you won't be sorry!

We had to replace our infrastructure consisting of about eight aging servers. I began looking for a good, redundant system and ran across the HCAs. 

Having never used one before I began researching the different providers as well as looking at going the traditional route. I lucked out by finding StarWinds through a colleague of mine and was greatly impressed. The Dell Enterprise servers not only replaced what we had but also gave me the piece of mind I haven't had in years.

The StarWind system also made managing the units easy and not too time consuming. For a very small IT department, that was key.

The solution has improved our ability to prepare for future needs by easily being able to add servers, storage, backup devices, and more. 

With their highly knowledgeable sales and support team, we are not anxious about upgrading our equipment or suffering long downtimes. We were hosting our ERP environment outside the organization which limited some of the functionality. 

With the HCA appliance we are comfortable with it being in-house and finally get to take advantage of some advanced features we have been missing out on.

The ability to balance servers across the appliance effortlessly and knowing that if we do experience a hardware failure we can keep on trucking is the most valuable aspect.

I cannot say enough about their support team. They are the greatest and extremely knowledgeable. Proactive support is a lifesaver.

The setup was simple and very fast. Servers came pre-configured for our environment and as soon as they were in the rack, Starwind got them up and running.

Monitoring the servers is a breeze and is possible all on one screen. This makes managing the environment super easy - even for a novice.

Updates need improvement. We do not receive critical update notices from Dell. This would be extremely helpful since my primary focus every day is software and DB development and not server updates. A notification when critical updates are available would make management of the systems even easier than it already is. 

The StarWind Command console stopped working for us and we managed the system manually. There is an update that we will be taking advantage of within the next week that I am sure will correct this issue.

I've used the solution for 14 months.

The solution has been very stable with a single exception. We missed a critical update to the firmware of our Samsung SSDs that took us offline. I wish there had been a way to have had a notification of the missing critical update prior to getting to the failure point.

Even with this,  StarWinds support worked with us and the hardware provider to get us back up quickly with no data loss.

The solution is very scalable.

I have nothing bad to say. They are very quick to respond and with the proactive support, they generally know of issues before I do. They are very knowledgeable.

Positive

We just used standalone servers previously.

The setup is straightforward with handholding from support every step of the way.

We used the vendor team. They were very highly experienced.

Our ROI was almost immediate since we stopped using a hosting company for our ERP environment.

It is a very affordable solution and extremely easy to set up.

We also evaluated Nutanix.

If this is your first HCA or your next, you will not go wrong with StarWind.

We needed a cost-effective and simple solution to replace our traditional SAN/server setup. 

Before StarWind, we were running a two-node cluster with a single SAN. Obviously, the storage was a single point of failure and we wanted to avoid this in our next solution.  

The StarWind deployment consisted of one two-node production environment and a second two-node test environment. With each of these two nodes, we accomplished full redundancy. Our production environment runs Hyper-V with 30 VMs and is used company-wide. Our test environment runs 15 VMs.

StarWind Virtual SAN has been a great product for us. The setup was easy to deploy, and management is simplified compared with traditional SAN solutions. Redundancy is achieved at a fraction of the cost when compared to other solutions. We opted for premier support which includes StarWind software support, OS support, Veeam support, patching, and OS updates. 

In addition, our environment is proactively monitored 24/7. We've had experience with other solutions such as NetApp and Dell SAN, however, StarWind was by far a better solution for us. 

The most important feature for us is the simplicity of the product. We are a small IT team and can't afford to spend much time managing and maintaining the servers/SAN.  

With our old traditional SAN, we had to manage servers and a complex SAN system that was connected to switches and then back to the servers. These three pieces made it very difficult to manage. We could not manage this on our own and had to pay third-party vendors to manage it for us. With StarWind, we do it all ourselves with the help of tech support.  

When reaching out to support by phone they do have a slight accent but are not too difficult to understand. 

An emphasis on security can be improved. For example, things like default passwords were not changed initially until requested. 

Veeam support was available, however, we often went to Veeam direct for slightly quicker answers. I can't really think of much else, however, if I had to split hairs I'd say that on reboots sometimes it takes a while to sync with the other node. The maximum was 30 minutes, however, 99% of the time it was three to four minutes.

We've been using StarWind Virtual SAN for about five years.

The stability was rock solid. We have never had any downtime. 

We don't have too much experience with scalability as we only had one site. 

Customer service is available 24/7 - which is great. They have more experience with the StarWind software than with other 3rd party software such as Veeam.  The language accent can be a slight issue as well, however, it's not too bad.  Other than that, they are very helpful and friendly.  

Positive

We had a traditional sever and SAN solution. It was very complicated to manage.

The initial setup was straightforward, however, it helps to have a good amount of experience for a smooth transition. Expert level is not required. That said, admin experience in a virtual environment is very helpful. 

We implemented the solution directly with StarWind. 

Overall, the pricing was great with StarWind. Other solutions were two to eight times more expensive. 

We evaluated other solutions such as Nutanix and the cloud (Azure). They were much more expensive.  

We needed a high availability solution for our mission-critical infrastructure. We wanted to minimize any potential downtime and make sure we had a redundant system in place. 

We are currently running three nodes that maintain our fleet of virtual machines. We are able to run the entire infrastructure off of two nodes so it makes patching very easy and we don't have to schedule downtime. The failover clustering works flawlessly and we can move virtual machines between all the nodes extremely quickly. 

The machines perform much better than what we were previously using; they are workhorses. We have had zero issues with them over the years we've been using the solution. Support is extremely helpful and the application is easy to set up and configure. 

It has also helped us to schedule less downtime as we're able to run all of our machines off of two nodes while we patch. Being able to live-migrate virtual machines from one box to another goes extremely quickly and is never noticed from the end-user side.

Having high availability is a must in our environment and works flawlessly. Their service is top-notch and if a node goes down they immediately are following up with us to make sure that everything is working smoothly. 

We have a massive amount of storage for future expandability. 

Being a small team the service that we receive from them gives us peace and mind and knowing that if something were to go wrong they would be able to step in and support us in getting the application back up and running as soon as possible.

We don't find ourselves using the StarWind Console it would be nice to have some extra features built into it. 

There doesn't seem to be anything upfront inside of it that would warrant us to monitor it or use its feature set. 

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 - such as displaying critical events, storage space used/available, the health of the disks, etc. Other than that, in our time with the system, we haven't had any complaints or issues in our environment.

We have been using this solution for the last three years.

The nodes have been extremely stable. We have had no issues over the last few years when using them.

The machines work great and with the amount of storage we originally had purchased. We are in no danger of running out anytime soon.

Customer service has been kind and professional and on top of their game. We're notified very quickly if they notice a node going down on their end.

Positive

We were previously using VMware. The cost was extremely high so we wanted to move to something else. 

Initial setup was very straightforward with the engineers providing great support to get it implemented.

We used our in-house team to install and then the vendor's engineers configured the application for us.

The setup cost and pricing were very competitive, even including service. That's why we went with StarWind.

We considered HyperV as an alternative and found StarWind.

The solution provides hyper-converged storage for cluster virtualization hosts and is used alongside Hyper-v for a highly secure, robust, resilient storage solution. Its works with all hypervisors on the market today.

My use case saw it removing SAN architecture in favor of hyper-converged storage directly attached to my hosts, in testing the speed of which is comparable to any other storage solutions available.

It has allowed me to expand my virtualization footprint whilst reducing my overall physical server footprint.

It has removed the need for large shared storage that is not directly attached to the virtual hosts make it a deal to deal with, it also self heals in the event of any major incident or down time, along with the 24/7 support and the most knowledgably staff when needed.

It has allowed me to expand my virtualization foot print whilst reducing my overall physical server foot print.

This solution has allowed me to remove other storage solutions reduce physical footprint of equipment as well as power usage.

The easy way everything can be configured and ready to run in less than a day is great. 

The support staff knows the product inside out and any issues that were thrown up they knew how to resolve immediately.

The ongoing maintenance and monitoring are key to the product catalog and allow for smooth and seamless ongoing use. 

It is helping reduce out-of-hours calls and it also helps with identifying predicted failure patterns, to assist in the very most uptime of production servers 365 days a year and 24/7.

Not much can be improved, to be honest. The solution is clean, quick to install, and has had no issues since the day we started using it. The features are improving every version level, however, I cannot think of anything I would really require to change at this moment in time.

It also offers an exclusive version of StarWind Virtual SAN which can be installed on just a few nodes in a much bigger cluster. There’s absolutely no need to enable it and pay license fees for all of the nodes. 

Some vendors will currently ask you to pay for all nodes in a cluster. StarWind Virtual SAN does best breed of scale-out and scale-up approaches combined in a single cluster.

I've used the solution for six months.

I have done vigorous testing prior to live install and the stability of the system is excellent.

The scalability is amazing as it allows for a scale-out and scale-up approaches combined in a single cluster.

Every time I have called, I have gotten the person I need along with an answer to my questions.

Positive

I just used a SAN Storage solution. I switched for reduced physical servers and power consumption.

The initial setup was a breeze. StarWind support did it all for me.

The StarWind in-house team did it all for me and I would rate them ten out of ten.

Currently I do not have any ROI figures.

StarWind can help identify exactly what you need and help identify the best hardware for the best price.

We looked at Dell Equal Logic SAN Storage solutions.