StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

StarWind Virtual SAN has been a welcomed addition to my network.

Overall, StarWinds vSAN is a cost-saving storage option with top-notch support.

The vSAN provides full redundancy for storage while reclaiming some rack space. I can focus on other IT needs now, rather than having to worry about redundancy with an aging physical SAN storage unit. If an HDD fails, I can easily hot-swap and continue the business.

Support was extremely helpful in regards to setup and implementation.

The admin portal has been easy to use and provides a great overview of health and usage.

I found that certain browsers are not fully compatible with the administration web access portal. I would like to see continued improvement with additional compatibility for other browsers to be able to work properly with the administrator web portal.

I did find out, with the help of StarWind's support, that the Firefox browser seems to be the browser that works the best with their web portal.

It also appears that vMotion is slower than my previous SAN solution, which was a traditional physical unit.

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN for one year.

Since implementation, I have not had one issue with performance or stability.

This is a scalable solution, as it is simple to add another vSAN.

I never felt rushed while I had to install additional host NIC cards and they walked me through every step of the setup process. Their support has been quick to respond and with frequent updates. They will always work a case until I am satisfied that I have a proper and understood answer.

I am not bombarded with additional sales calls, but they do check in from time to time only to make sure all is well. That is appreciated.

I was forced to replace my traditional physical SAN when I was unable to get additional service parts, even as it was still under a support contract. I needed a full-featured, low-cost replacement for it.

StarWind came highly recommended throughout various IT channels and colleagues.

I implemented myself, with the use of StarWind's support team. Their support team was instrumental in aiding the completion of the setup process.

The support was a great resource for setup and continued use. They took the time to really explain how their solution works, specifically within my environment.

StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup.

We looked at Dell/EMC and HPE solutions and they were all extremely expensive.

A sales rep was quick to get me in touch with an engineer who patiently walked me through my endless questions of compatibility and setup. They even assisted with recommendations for host hard drives: both HDD and SSD options.

Overall, StarWinds vSAN is a cost-saving storage option with top-notch support.

We have a failover Hyper-V cluster and a stand-alone Veeam server. We back up our VMs via Veeam. We wanted to get our backups 3-2-1 compliant with a backup to disk backup, a second backup to another medium that was a virtual tape in our case, and backups to the cloud. 

We had a second physical server with tons of storage, so we installed StarWind. We were able to create a VTL and have tons of virtual tapes. We utilized iSCSI and were able to get Veeam to use this VTL as a destination for tape backups

In addition to Veeam being able to back up to tape now, we were also able to get the StarWind software to connect with our preferred storage vendor, Wasabi. Now, we back up to disk, back up to tape, and then ship those tapes offsite automatically to Wasabi.

The StarWind software was easy and quick to implement/setup and now our backup process is fully automated. 

Our backups are 3-2-1 compliant, which satisfies several audits and cybersecurity/insurance questionnaires. In addition, the process is fully automated.

We now have multiple copies of our backups and in the event of a complete disaster we also now have a DR strategy in place. 

Prior to this solution, we had a single point of failure when it came to backups. Now we, essentially have three targets, two of which are completely air gapped for security.

Lastly, the virtual tapes I've been told are impervious to ransomware. 

A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic. This is one less major thing to worry about.

Before, we had a lot of stock and pressure on our singular backup server. It carried a lot of weight. Now with the VTL software in place, we have three backup targets. The primary backup server is still critical but if that server were to go down, we would still have backup data intact. If our data center went down, we would still have backup data intact thanks to the offsite options. 

We can rest easier knowing our data is fully protected. The fact we have a DR strategy is priceless.

The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive. Perhaps introduce a few right-click options, as that's my general go-to approach as opposed to searching for specific menu items.

I also feel that when dealing with a magnitude of tapes perhaps better formatting or color-coding will help locate or identify tapes easier than scrolling through the list. Also if the lists' real estate on the screen could be increased that would be helpful as well. 

Other than that, I have no complaints or issues with the software.

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN for six months.

I haven't had any issues with the app becoming unusable. It's very stable and I have yet to experience a problem with it.

The software can be upgraded with each release, so it's very scalable. 

The technical support is amazing. Five stars. They are quick to respond and are able to handle issues very quickly and provide great feedback and explanation. 

We did not use another similar solution prior to this.

The initial setup was very straightforward and simple. I had the support team guide me along the way but the setup process was intuitive and there was nothing confusing about it. 

I implemented it through their support team. After we purchased the software, they helped set us up. They were very knowledgeable and fast. We had tape backups working in minutes. 

I don't have exact figures in terms of ROI but I can say the product was well worth the cost.

The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint.

We did not evaluate other options.

After we purchased the software, we were able to contact support right away. I would suggest you take advantage of this, as they are quick to respond and got my software up and running literally within minutes.

We were looking for a way to utilize local storage for our Hyper-V cluster to prevent having to purchase a new SAN solution. I discovered this unique software and deployed it. It works well for sharing local storage in a Hyper-V cluster. Our existing, older SAN was too slow for this particular implementation. VSAN solved this problem successfully.

It helped us to save money by not having to purchase a new hardware SAN. The VSAN works better than our existing, older SAN. This software works well for the vital signs capture software we were implementing in a new Hyper-V failover cluster.

Our organization has less hardware to maintain since we didn't have to purchase a new SAN. Being able to run this software in the new virtual machines saved time and money. 

Their excellent tech and customer support also give our organization peace of mind.

The primary purpose of this software is to create a virtual SAN between local storage on Hyper-V hosts. I find this feature most valuable since it accomplishes this quite well. This is a unique product, as I haven't found another software that does this. 

I've also found their tech support very valuable. They helped me to save our data and set up new virtual disks using their best practices. Their customer support is also very responsive. They reached out to me to make sure everything is working as expected. 

If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things. I'm not sure how they would implement that, but I think it would be possible. 

Another feature they could add would be better integration with Windows networking and disk management tools. Maybe something as simple as shortcuts to those applications within the StarWind management console.

Perhaps automatic recommendations when setting up hosts/disks would be helpful as well.

We have been using this solution for about a year.

This product seems very stable and it seems to recover well if I do something I shouldn't.

This product is scalable. The number of virtual disks is unlimited, but each disk size is limited to 4TB with my license.

I found their tech support to be excellent. I had a major issue where we could have lost all of our data on the VSAN, and they helped me to resolve it. In fact, their customer service and technical support are both excellent. They are very responsive and knowledgeable.

I used the free version of StarWind VSAN initially. But when I had a problem, it was much more difficult to solve without a GUI.

Some parts of the setup are straightforward, but other parts are more complex. Their support team helped me through the complex setup portions.

The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect.

I didn't evaluate any other options, as I'm not aware of another software that does this.

We decided to migrate our infrastructure from Terago Cloud to a Tier III datacenter. It was primordial for our company to have redundancy at every level. It was not an easy sell to make that move and I needed to prove to management that we could have a very secure environment.

I needed to have a software that could create a fail over between my hosts that would work well with VMWare 7.0. After researching several company we made the decision to go with Starwind.

Of course, once we had everything in place, we made a test failover. It failed. I went back to Starwind and this was fix within one phone call. Missing configuration. The following test was successful.

The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing. Also, it was easy to test the solution to make sure it worked. How many companies out there install software without testing it?

It was easy to get organized and test to be sure it was performing to its full capacity. During the failover, only a few seconds of downtime were seen, proving to me that I can count on StarWind during business hours and know that they have our back at the Host level. Who can afford downtime?

Without a doubt, it would be support. Either we were sending an email to our Rep or simply calling in to open a case, a returned call could be expected within the hour. Always courteous and helpful. Those guys know there products and surrounding, like VMWare. They also keep on following up until you say that all is well.

We were having issues with our vCenter when we first deployed, and we had to call back technical support a few times. Each time was a fast and professional service that was offered to us.

This is a tough question. One that I wouldn't have put in here for the simple fact that I decided to write a positive experience with Starwind.

Now, if I want to be picky, I could simply say that the price is not cheap. I started with the basic package, for 4 TB. Than I had to purchase to go up to 8 TB. It does look now that I will have to pay the remaining fee to purchase unlimited data. Should I have done so first, maybe but things change very rapidly and what wasn't needed not too long ago is now. SO overhaul, price. I would also need to pay extra to be able to have support during the weekend, otherwise, you have support only from Monday to Friday. Can be inconvenient if your business work 24 hrs shift Sunday to Friday.

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN since the rebuild of our infrastructure in August 2020.

So far so good and since it is running directly on VMware, I do not see any issues in the future either.

With the right licensing, I do not see any issue with scalability.

The installation was straightforward but it still was a new product for us and we didn't know how it was going to integrate with VMware 7.0. At this time, I am seeing a few issues with 7.0, so I wasn't sure if we would have any problems during installation. Nevertheless, StarWind support is what is making me write this review today. Compared to any other company we may have called, no other is as fast and as good to get the problem resolved.

This was our first installation.

The installation was fairly straightforward. Although the first test didn't work for us, only a phone call was required to make this work. We have successfully tested the solution and can see first hand that it work great!

We did in-house with the help of Starwind tech. If you want to make sure it work properly, this is the way to go and their support is fantastic.

N/A

Make sure to look for the next package that they offer for the licensing part. Adding Drives will happen faster than you hope it will.

StarWind came highly recommended and rightly so.

We use this product in our VMWare vSphere environment.

We use vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus and have a four host system. All four hosts have matching solid-state storage in a raid 10 array. We have two pairs acting as sync pairs so that one host in each pair can fail before we lose access to the VMs on those hosts. They are connected via 40GB redundant links for both iSCSI and sync.

We have really tried to focus on both speed and redundancy and feel that this setup was the best way to accomplish that goal.

StarWind vSAN has translated to a huge improvement in speed and high availability compared to our old iSCSI shared storage solution. Previously, we had a network-attached storage device with tiered arrays. Part of it was a standard spinning disk and the other was solid-state drives.

With this new solid-state local storage, we have massively improved our user experience.

The sync functionality is amazing as well, compared to our old replication system, in that it happens in realtime as data is written so that high availability is as fast as possible.

Speed and high availability have been the most valuable for us. Again, I would say the speed for our users has been extremely valuable. I wouldn't say it was terrible before but you know it's fast when normal, non-tech-savvy users are asking if we upgraded something because some local database app feels faster today!

From a business continuity standpoint, I love how it has improved our failover processes in vSphere. Having the data replicate in real time between host pairs has almost completely automated the process. 

I think the setup could be streamlined a bit. I was already familiar with iSCSI and setting up shared storage, but the abstraction process of getting from configuring the raid array on the local host machine, and making sure all the correct values are set to get the best performance, was a bit finicky.

Then, you had to prepare the appliances on each host and again make sure your VMDKs are properly formatted and then mounted correctly so they can be shared as iSCSI disks. It just felt like a lot of opportunities for a user to make big mistakes that would affect the end performance.

I was very impressed with the tech who walked me through the whole process, as I'm just not sure I would have gotten there on my own. 

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN for five months.

I did not use another solution prior to this one.

I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN.

I evaluated VMware vSAN.

We have Microsoft Hyper-V.  StarWind is configured as a two-node cluster with a Windows environment. It is crucial for the Virtual Machines that give us the resiliency of Exchange, 4TB File Servers, Networking Services, Quickbooks Server, Terminal Servers, Virtualized Spam Protection, Active Directory Services, and a few others.

We needed something that allows for better resiliency than the old way of doing things.  We have seen other choices out there but this seemed to be the best one, given our budget and the hardware we wanted to use.

This StarWind solution has enabled us to be more resilient, once it was set up and tested.

Failover happens very smoothly. Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working.

Before StarWind, we were dealing with an archaic way of synchronizing Virtual machines and data between non-clustered physical hosts and it was very frustrating. Now, things are less hands-on and easier to manage and navigate the virtual environment, including maintenance while other users keep working.

We found that robust communications between clusters and synchronization were key and most valuable to us due to the amount of data we were synchronizing.

The expertise from their technicians is very helpful even in the middle of the night, with the right support plan of course. The technical documentation, the follow-up and the details noted on a per-call basis was amazing. We really appreciate that kind of commitment to our success and stability that the StarWind software brings to our business.

Built-in Notification would really help and as I understand, their new release has this now.  

A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful.

Also, it would be helpful if the software had a few more guides and links/videos on how-to's.

An "Update available" notification within the software would also be helpful and a guided wizard to do the upgrade properly would also be nice and efficient.

A better visual of the SAN storage/actual storage and how it is used would be good, especially when it comes to where the files are located on the disk. 

We have been using StarWind Virtual SAN for the last two years.

Stability seems great and we have not had any problems with the software.

Seems very scalable, although we chose to have a two-node cluster.

This area has been the best for us, especially being new to this technology. The support team was amazing with follow-up and they are super patient.

I have not used another solution for the same purpose. This was what I picked based on my research.

Initially, I didn't quite understand the framework and what exact hardware was needed so I had to do some learning. However, once all was in place it went pretty smoothly.

We did our deployment in-house, with help from StarWind.

Return on investment for us, I would say maybe breaking even. As I said, I wish the costs were better balanced.

The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive.

I have looked at Nutanix and VMware.

Mainly that the costs would be less expensive.

We are using Starwind as a virtual SAN Solution for our Microsoft Hyper-V Cluster environment. We have multiple clusters in a couple of different locations over the country. 

We wanted a robust HA environment that could run all of our servers on one node without the need for a third witness and without multiple other SAN appliances that need to be managed by a small IT team. We want to make a HA solution with a KIS (Keep it Simple) approach and Starwind has managed to accomplish this for a reasonable price.

We were previously using HP Storevirtual which was very hard to configure and support and the performance was very bad, plus updating was horrible.

We wanted a simple robust easy-to-manage HA software and have been using a Starwind Virtual SAN (vSAN) at two production locations with a Hyper-V Cluster for almost five years now. It has given us very good performance and hasn't had any issues in the past few years.

Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software.

What we like best about it is that it is the only true two-node Hyper-V cluster solution that's available. On both production locations, we have a two-node setup over two different server rooms.

Our main goal was that we wanted to have all VM servers available on one cluster host in case of a disaster in one of our server rooms.

Microsoft SSD (Storage Space Direct) always needs a third witness (SMB or Cloud), however, in our two-node solution, this is not ideal. Directly connected fiber connections between the nodes make everything fast and make the chance of a cluster split-brain fault less likely.

Pros include:
- Starwind Support will install and configure the software;
- Starwind will do the updates for you, and this all without any downtime of hosts/VMs
- It's the only a two-node cluster scenario available
- It is compatible with the latest Windows Server versions

I don't think there is much change needed with Starwind vSAN. The product works very well as it is. I haven't got any new features that I would like to add. 

If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier.

The support is excellent and all the people I've contacted have good knowledge of the product. There is nothing to change there. 

I've have 10 years of experience with the product, and seven years of using it at my current company. We still like this software in 2024

StarWind Virtual SAN, along with two Fujitsu Primergy servers, forms the backbone of our hyper-converged solution. This storage, network, and compute solution is used for our Hyper-V cluster. From this cluster, we run all of our virtual servers, which in turn run our business-critical infrastructure. This includes domain controllers, file servers, database servers, application servers, and everything to support it.

We once operated with a physical SAN, several servers, along with the networking equipment and the required fiber-channel infrastructure.

StarWind Virtual SAN allowed us to eliminate the need for any physical SANs. We also got rid of the expensive fiber-channel equipment. Now, we just have two servers that form the StarWind nodes and that's it!

All of our storage, networking that includes 1GB and 10GB Ethernet, and compute power are all housed in the StarWind Virtual SAN solution. 

It's simple and very reliable.

The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business.

Presenting Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs) from StarWind Virtual SAN to Hyper-V simplifies my storage management and reduces costs vs having a physical SAN.  

The solution has matured and I have no points for improvement.  

We have had StarWind Virtual SAN for nearly nine years.

I've now been using StarWind Virtual SAN for over nine years. While I have had underlying hardware go bad during this time, the Virtual SAN never failed. I have replaced an entire hardware node with zero downtime. It's rock solid.  

Prior to adopting StarWind Virtual SAN, I had multiple Dell Equallogic SAN devices.  When it was time to replace the Equallogic with new hardware, the costs were unjustifiable after learning about and evaluating StarWind Virtual SAN.  

Communicate with StarWind, they will work with you and your team to size a solution that works for you.  

Our organization was using physical storage platforms where we were facing slowness issues, and the cost of a conventional platform was high. 

We heard about the solution from one of our partners, and we got a demo of the product. 

The core features of the product resolved our issues, like high availability and integration of the solution with the virtual platforms. 

The StarWind Virtual SAN solution is cheap compared to conventional physical storage platforms. StarWind Virtual SAN is a good product when it comes to virtualization.

StarWind Virtual SAN helps us to improve our organization as most of our infrastructure is on the virtualization platform. 

StarWind Virtual SAN helped us in the integration with the virtualization platforms. By using common X86 servers instead of pricey proprietary hardware, StarWind Virtual SAN lowers the cost of storage infrastructure.

It is straightforward to configure, monitor, and administer the storage infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN's intuitive administration interface.

When their data storage requirements increase, enterprises may quickly enhance storage capacity with the help of StarWind Virtual SAN without having to pay additional fees for specialized storage gear.

There are different features that helped our organization as compared to conventional storage platforms. These include:

Scalability. Without the need for any downtime, enterprises can simply grow their storage infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN by adding new servers or disks to the current infrastructure.

Flexibility. A variety of deployment options, including hyper-converged infrastructure, two-node cluster configurations, and conventional SAN designs, are supported by StarWind Virtual SAN.

Performance. The usage of RAM and SSD caching, as well as the capability to offload storage traffic from the network using RDMA technology, allow StarWind Virtual SAN to operate at a high-performance level.

Cost-effectiveness. By using common X86 servers instead of pricey proprietary hardware, StarWind Virtual SAN lowers the cost of storage infrastructure.

Usefulness. StarWind Virtual SAN offers a straightforward and user-friendly administration interface that makes it simple to set up, keep track of, and administer the storage infrastructure.

The interface of the management console of the StarWind Virtual SAN is complex, and it's difficult for the novice user to interact with the management having less knowledge or training in the product. 

The troubleshooting guide of the product is also for the technical resources. 

The product needs to improve its features in terms of customer support and the management interface. The improvements in the management interface for the product help the user to work with the storage node having less knowledge or interaction with the product.

I have been using the StarWind Virtual SAN solution for the last six months.

Our primary use case is for physical to virtual environment migration, requiring a VSAN storage for a data center we had an old BLC 460 gen 6 blades with physical storage attached. If we had any issues with the hardware or operating system the downtime for production would be for hours, so we created a virtual data center with VMware vSphere and added 3 20TB storage on each host then created 3-node StarWind scenario being shared on all 3 hosts, and creating virtual machines on 3 hosts and now running on StarWind storage.

StarWind VSAN improved our organization as we had a project to migrate from a physical environment to a virtual environment using Vmware Vsphere 6.7 and we needed a secure VSAN storage to be able to share it over the virtual Datacenter and to be able to use the vSphere high availability feature as we needed storage visible overall host on our SITE, this way we have less downtime if one of the hosts fails and HA comes out as the VSAN storage from StarWind is our main storage where all Virtual Machines are running.

One of the best features on the management console is the way you can deploy the VSAN storage, with basic knowledge you can use the GUI from the node to create partitions then, creating volumes on the management console and manage it like, sync priority, or putting them on maintenance mode to be able to restart hosts.

PowerShell library is pretty good feature as I created with APC PowerChute a script to put volumes on maintenance mode then turning off the StarWind nodes together with the VM and Hosts when UPS reaches 15 percent, this way after a blackout or electrical problems when turning servers on again, there are no issues for syncing or data loss due to energy interrupts.

• Easy migration to ZFS system that is being presented on a new version of StarWind, migrations look complicated as this restructures the whole architecture on the raid level, but could be a good option just by having it and letting the user decide this new feature migration, as based on our experience with ZFS systems they work pretty fast and secure.
• Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device could be a good feature and nice to have as we are not always on our desk.
  

I have been using this solution for over four years.

Good stability as we have a mirrored storage.

Pretty good impressions, especially the support.

Fast response and great attention.

We migrated from HPE StoreVirtual.

It was straightforward if you have RAID, array controllers, and network knowledge.

We tried at first doing it ourselves, but I recommend letting the support team the VSAN installations as we missed some configurations that based on their experience we missed as beginners.

About $3500 USD every 3 years.

its a good option compared with other vendors as licence is perpetual and wont charge every three years as HPE.

Yes, we used HPE StoreVirtual, we moved to StarWind to reduce costs. We tried VMware VSAN and the cost was too elevated for our requirements.

By letting the support team do it next time, as based on their knowledge we have the correct configurations.