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StarWind Virtual SAN pros and cons

Vendor: StarWind
4.8 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

StarWind Virtual SAN allows for seamless integration with Microsoft clustering, maximizing investment in MS server licensing.
The support team is composed of knowledgeable experts who provide clear communication during setup and beyond.
It offers high availability and data protection by enabling active-active work mode, allowing maintenance without downtime.
StarWind Virtual SAN is cost-effective, enabling high availability storage using any consumer or enterprise HDDs and SSDs with no vendor lock-in.
The setup is extremely stable and easy to deploy, allowing businesses to leverage existing hardware and avoid purchasing costly additional storage appliances.

CONS

Documentation is often outdated and lacks clarity in multiple areas, which makes it difficult for users to complete setup and maintenance tasks effectively.
StarWind Virtual SAN lacks sufficient automated tools and features for managing iSCSI connections and network configurations, especially for complex environments.
Software updates are infrequent, leading to potential syncing issues and prolonging resolutions when problems arise.
There's a need for improved monitoring and alert systems to proactively identify and address performance issues and changes within the virtual SAN environments.
StarWind Virtual SAN pricing is considered high, and better support for cost reduction through extended free trials or more affordable support options is desired by users.
 

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: June 2025.
861,803 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.
JC
May 15, 2025
StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by saving money in skill set development, and certainly minimal downtime across all of our installations, where they maintain almost zero downtime in their 24/7 operations.
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.
 

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: June 2025.
861,803 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.
JC
May 15, 2025
That limited feedback in the management GUI is the main area where I would like to see StarWind Virtual SAN get better.
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.