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StarWind Virtual SAN pros and cons

Vendor: StarWind
4.8 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1
683 followers
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Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

StarWind Virtual SAN boasts seamless integration with Microsoft clustering, maximizing existing MS server licensing investments.
The support team is exceptional, offering clear communication and extensive technical expertise.
It provides significant cost savings by utilizing existing server storage, eliminating the need for separate storage appliances.
Active-active high availability features ensure top performance, redundancy, and load distribution across multiple nodes.
StarWind Virtual SAN's hardware agnostic nature allows integration with any consumer or enterprise HDDs and SSDs, offering flexibility and cost-efficiency.

CONS

Documentation can be out of date and lacks clarity in several areas, needing more concise and detailed information, especially for new users.
There is a need for more automated tooling and cmdlets for easier management and automation in Windows environments.
Issues with updating exist, sometimes causing syncing problems and lacking regular software updates, affecting stability and performance.
Management of iSCSI connections, storage components, and configurations can be complex and tedious, requiring more intuitive processes.
Integration with cloud services, other technologies, and improved support resources are needed to enhance overall functionality and user experience.
 

StarWind Virtual SAN Pros review quotes

BS
Jan 24, 2019
The control panel is nice. It gives you a lot of good feedback as to the status and health of the VSAN.
MH
Jan 23, 2019
It has reduced our overall maintenance and overhead by having to only maintain physical boxes for one cluster instead of having to manage physical boxes for two clusters.
RO
Jan 23, 2019
The ProActive support gives me peace of mind because I am a one man shop, but with the technical support behind me, I feel like more than just one person. We spent two to three hours, depending on what we have to do, always on the phone, and they do not push to end the call.
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
MIT - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 14, 2022
The install itself is easy as pie.
reviewer1667487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 19, 2021
The solution is also quite flexible. As an example, other vSAN solutions that we looked at had more stringent requirements regarding mixed HDD/SSD storage which wouldn't have worked in our environment.
Eren Cakmak - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 23, 2024
With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability.
SN
Nov 21, 2022
The fact that we can expand our storage and add on to our compute nodes easily and how amazing the StarWind technical support team is really adding value to our purchase.
MH
Feb 12, 2019
We are able to do maintenance by bringing down one node at a time, rather than having to schedule a complete shutdown.
reviewer189641 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 2, 2023
You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage.
Spencer Lines - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 10, 2023
We are running Hyper-V on twin servers in failover, and being able to manage servers from anywhere I need to, virtually, has been a game changer.
 

StarWind Virtual SAN Cons review quotes

BS
Jan 24, 2019
For improvement, I would like to see how the software determines which networks to use for which purpose. It seems like the naming terminology changes a bit from here to there.
MH
Jan 23, 2019
If there are domain controllers inside the cluster, there needs to be some sort of logic allowing them to boot independently so all the rest of the domain clients can gain the authority they need to come online.
RO
Jan 23, 2019
With data verification, I would like to know how does the solution perform validation of data being synced between two VSANs.
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
MIT - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 14, 2022
Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline.
reviewer1667487 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 19, 2021
The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation.
Eren Cakmak - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 23, 2024
While we had little to no issues in setting up StarWind and received excellent support from the StarWind technicians, we would have appreciated a clearer guideline for a setup with the free version of StarWind Management Console or, in other words - for the setup with the PowerShell.
SN
Nov 21, 2022
We don't really have any issues with this product.
MH
Feb 12, 2019
It would be helpful to have a little more insight into what kind of performance the VSAN cluster is utilizing; something that would be more proactive on our side, versus their ProActive Support.
reviewer189641 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 2, 2023
There is a general lack of documentation, especially up-to-date documentation to get started.
Spencer Lines - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 10, 2023
I'd love to see more clarification for us folks who are smart enough to do some damage yet not smart enough to use CLI.