StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

We use VMware ESXi and needed a SAN replacement. Our old SAN is an HPE StoreVirtual VSA, but we are running out of space and it's getting old, so our support will be ending soon.

We will use the storage for our main cluster including OS and data drives. 

This has helped us gain a resilient and robust SAN for much less than anything else we could find. It also allows us to add storage without any license penalty. We will move from using six servers to three. We will also be able to stop using several stand-alone iSCSI devices. 

The best thing about the StarWind SAN is the HA we setup. We can lose a site or even two of our three, and we would lose no data and have no outage.

In testing, we found some features in the Linux appliance were missing. So, for full functionality, you will want to use the Windows version. Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet. I hope the feature is added in the next update release.

Adding storage after its all setup is a little difficult.

So far, I have seen a service fail on one system during our test phase. Synchronization stopped and I had to start the service again. This was during a power outage but the server never went down. It has never happened again. 

The way we have this setup, scaling is difficult. We use three systems that are all synchronized and using MIMO iSCSI. Adding storage means adding it to all three, rather than just tossing another server at it. You can architect it differently, which would make scaling easier.

Technical support is great. They are very responsive, they always reply quickly, and seem very knowledgeable.

We used an HPE StoreVirtual VSA. Its support is ending and a replacement was going to cost too much for us.

The setup was easy, but afterward, support walked us through a bunch of settings that I would have missed.

The setup was all done by local IT staff with a final remote check with support, where they changed many advanced settings. 

It all cost about twenty-five percent less than the other solutions we looked at.

The basic setup is very easy and the cost is reasonable for support. 

We looked at Nimble, HPE VSA, and Tegile storage.

If you're at all interested then build a few systems using old hardware, or just spin up a few VMs. You get ninety percent of the features for free so there is no cost to try it out. The free version is great to use for labs or test environments.

Our primary use case is as a virtual storage area network for server clusters and file storage in a production environment for our company.

This solution reduces the cost of additional equipment and services for the creation and development of corporate infrastructure.

StarWind Virtual SAN was designed with virtualization workloads in mind. It employs server-side Flash/RAM caches and minimalist/short I/O path to provide performance unmatched by typical virtual appliances and physical shared storage.

StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time. This may be a choice to reduce the services running on the storage nodes but does seem like it would be a good alternative.

I feel that this solution is very stable.

Qualified online support specialists are always ready to help.

We did not use a different solution before this one.

We evaluated VMware before settling on this product.

A thorough analysis and testing of existing offerings in the network storage market has shown that StarWind Virtual SAN is the perfect network storage solution.

It provides the necessary fault tolerance and continuance of business processes.

StarWind Virtual SAN is a very easy-to-use solution that can be quickly and easily deployed and configured without intimate and specific knowledge in the virtualization sphere.

Moreover, the manufacturer's website has detailed documentation that helps to resolve issues. In cases when the documentation is not enough, qualified online support specialists are always ready to help.

In the test environment, the product has shown excellent results and currently is implemented in a production environment.

StarWind is cost effective. There's no need to purchase additional hardware as shared storage. They have great technical support.

We saved money because we did not have to purchase shared storage and we benefited from high availability in our Hyper-V environment.

It has a user-friendly interface and a straightforward implementation.

Support is great and their staff is experienced.

They recommend RAID 10 for HDD which reduces the usable storage capacity. If they could improve this area, it will be of great benefit in terms of storage.

Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth.

We chose this product based on its good reviews.

Support is very good.

We had decentralized storage, inefficient storage and computer utilization, non-utilization of VMware vSphere advanced features like HA, FT, vMotion which require shared storage like StarWind.

StarWind VSAN provided us an efficient performance with HA. We tried other solutions as well and found StarWind’s VSAN easy to install and manage. The unlimited capacity license is also a very good feature.

• StarWind’s VSAN applications for VMware
• Easy to install and manage
• The unlimited capacity license is also a very good feature.

• A detailed performance monitoring of the storage system.
• A tool/wizard which analyzes the installed system and its configuration and gives a recommendation for improvement.

We use this solution for a High-Availability cluster for Hyper-V on two nodes. We are running on Windows Server 2016.

StarWind Virtual SAN allowed us to increase the fault tolerance of our servers, which resulted in greater user loyalty.

In addition to the main functions of the software, I want to note the excellent work of technical support.

Perhaps the developer should refine the product management through PowerShell. It is not entirely clear and there quite a bit of documentation.

We have been using the product for a long time and have not seen any glitches.

We plan to implement this solution on seventy servers in our branches. StarWind Virtual SAN allows you to do this quickly and it is not expensive.

Technical support works very responsibly when we have questions. They connected remotely to our servers, performed an analysis and made detailed recommendations.

The initial installation was easy since there are very detailed instructions for almost every server configuration.

I managed to implement everything myself.

I think the software is very good.

At the moment, I have not encountered problems that I could not solve.

We are using a two-node StarWind VSAN cluster on a Dell 720xds. The StarWind VSAN helps us to better leverage the computing power of our ESXi hosts and helped solve the problem of expanding local storage.

StarWind allowed us to deploy highly available shared storage within our budget. Other solutions were far too costly.

The HA clustering and the ability to run on our own equipment have been the most valuable.

I would like to see more monitoring and alert tools. StarWind offers a management console to configure the and monitor the servers, setting up SMTP alerts would be a plus.

We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective.

StarWind is used as the primary storage for three VMware hosts. It is running as a two node cluster for HA.

StarWind has provided an active-active HA storage system that keeps our systems running 24/7. We have the ability to keep everything up even when maintenance is required for updating the cluster or underlying OS/hardware issues.

My favorite feature, active-active HA, provides top performance and redundancy. Administration consists of patching/updating the product a few times a year but otherwise it simply works.

I haven't had a lot of interaction with support. My only complaint is that an update caused a syncing issue and it took over a month to resolve it. Every other time I have used support, it has been for a training/configuration question and was not time sensitive. They normally responded to those requests within 24 hours.

I switched from a Synology HA cluster after it had a split-brain situation and their tech support couldn't tell me why the issue occurred.

StarWind was the least expensive option I considered. Their maintenance cost is reasonable.

I looked at a number of other options including EMC, NetApp, Dell, HPE, etc.