StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

StarWind was the perfect solution that I was looking for: a true, two-node virtual SAN solution.

We're too small for three physical hypervisors, however, we still have two and want high availability. Native vSAN for the hypervisor we use requires two nodes plus a witness, or three, and we just couldn't do that.

In a search for an alternative, I found StarWind. They offer a true two-node setup with agent VMs on each host and two high-bandwidth links to each other, and that's it!

We're a visiting nurse association and rely on redundant hypervisors to keep our patient software up and running around the clock.

It has cut costs that we would've spent on network links and SAN appliance(s), allowing us to just include drives with our hosts and run a Virtual SAN.

Not only that, but the addition of two 10GB links now means that our hypervisor can live-migrate virtual machines very fast between hosts, and data is also synced between StarWind RAID arrays quickly too.

All this combines into a very efficient, fast, and reliable Virtual SAN solution that blazes past our previous physical SAN infrastructure.

The accessibility is great. It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly. It's pretty darn fast at syncing and I appreciate how friendly it is to SMBs.

Pricing is also very fair and their support is top-notch. I had some trouble setting it up. That said, it didn't take long at all to get in touch with support reps and they were knowledgeable on the product, not just an agent reading a script.

PROS include:
• Relatively easy to use
• True two-node vSAN
• Redundancy
• Stability (no issues in the years thus far of using it)
• Friendly pricing for SMBs and great support
• Great solution for SMB environments overall

The only thing I could suggest to improve is the documentation. The initial setup got a little confusing at a few points with differences between the VMware version in documentation vs the latest, etc.

CONS include:
• Documentation for initial setup can be a bit ambiguous at times, yet support helps you get through it; you're good once you're up and running.
• It's not native and not a bad thing. Just keep in mind it's a third-party solution so it won't be as "drop-in" as a native solution offered by your hypervisor.

I've used the solution for about 11 months.

So far. I have had no issues or lapses in performance/stability.

The solution is scalable. It is very easy to add more virtual disks.

Customer support is very good! The support rep knew what they were talking about and quickly got back to me with an answer.

Positive

Before we had a physical SAN, maybe the HP MSA P2300 (I may have gotten the model number wrong).

It was just too expensive and demanding of physical links/resources to go with another MSA, so we decided to try a Virtual SAN.

The initial setup was both straightforward and complex. It wasn't too hard, however, there were some little parts in the documentation where I got stuck without much help other than calling for a support agent, which solved my issue and cleared up the confusion.

The implementation was done in-house.

Pricing is pretty fair and includes one year of support (as of purchase in August 2022).

The license is based on how many hosts you have and how much in TB you need the vSAN to accommodate.

We looked at our native Hypervisor's vSAN product, however, it required three nodes (or two with one witness node) and just wasn't feasible for our setup as an SMB.

I am doing a change from physical to virtual servers and my goal is to change all the servers. There are a total of nine, and at this moment I have three servers that I have migrated. They now work better than the physical ones.

I am also doing backup copies of these virtual servers in case I have problems with any server, since in this area, we have problems with electricity and I already lost a physical server from that. That’s why I decided to make a new network of virtual servers with copies and clones of these servers and so far, it has worked very well.

StarWind Virtual SAN has been a great solution for this organization. In this area, we have electricity problems and the physical servers can be damaged - something that has already happened once. 

I made the decision to migrate the servers to virtual ones due to the fact that, if a virtual server is damaged, I just have to take the backup that I have already made of that server and replace it without any problem. The end user of the company does not notice the change. 

My intention is to have all the physical servers become virtual

StarWind Virtual SAN is a great solution when it comes to making virtual servers. I like this tool as it is simple and easy to use, robust, and 100% working so far. It’s also compatible with Windows Server 2019.

I was able to easily clone virtual machines. I save both physical and virtual space. You can also run Linux virtual machines and make it easy to manage replication between nodes within the cluster when needed. iSCSI support is also included and very good support from the technical staff during the installation phase.

I wish they would improve the documentation for the beginner level as it's not very clear on the web page. Better documentation would have saved me time in the beginning. The documentation is hard for new users to understand.

I have been using this tool for six months.

It is a very stable software; in these six months, I have not had problems with any virtual machine.

They are very good and the product is scalable. It is excellent that it adapts to the needs of each company.

The technical support can be a bit complicated by language barriers, however, the objectives have been achieved. 

Positive

I previously used VMware and switched to StarWind Virtual SAN for the cost savings.

The initial setup is a little slow at first, however, after researching and installing the software, it was easy to finish the installation.

We handled the setup internally.

The ROI is very good since the system has offered me a solution to change physical equipment for virtual ones and in the future the expenses will be reflected in that I do not have to buy equipment or hardware.

The price seems good to me compared to other tools that offer the same thing. That said, it's still worth seeing for yourself and looking at other tools before making a decision.

I used VMware and HyperV before, however, a colleague used StarWind Virtual SAN and he taught me how to use it and I liked the tool.

My overall experience with StarWind has been very positive. It is a very simple solution. It is not tied to any hypervisor or hardware configuration. Their support people are excellent and offer assistance in setting up the solution in your environment. While there is a bit more setup than some other products, all you really need is a basic understanding of storage and networking.

We purchased this product to manage storage between our two-node Hyper-V cluster. We're running a pair of Dell R740's with 16 core CPUs and RAID 6 storage arrays, all solid-state.  

We wanted this product to facilitate a hyper-converged environment while still maintaining two host redundancy. We're running about 25 virtual machines on this cluster, none of which are particularly storage IO intensive, yet we've still not seen any issues with performance when it comes to Starwind vSAN. We ended up on this option as it seemed to be simple, robust, and affordable.

This software lets us maintain storage redundancy across both of our Hyper-V hosts, so if one goes down the environment fails over to the other and we have minimal to no downtime.  

Keeping things running is an obvious benefit, and we opted to purchase their higher-tier support (for a very minor price increase). Knowing we've got them to fall back on if we can't fix something ourselves is good for peace of mind. The notifications built into the software mean we aren't constantly checking for issues as this is a very critical piece of our infrastructure.

Starwind support was extremely helpful throughout the entire process, from the trial period to the actual production implementation. They responded to my emails quickly and did a walkthrough to validate the final production configuration to ensure there were no issues.  

The engineer that assisted me with the walkthrough was very knowledgeable, and not just on Starwind software. He had several recommendations about our Hyper-V cluster configuration, and he always made sure to explain why he was making those recommendations. 

Some of the documentation seems to be a bit older and refers to deprecated items. This wasn't a huge issue as the technician that walked me through the install was very knowledgeable and gave me a clear list of steps to take.

The only major issue we had was with the NIC drivers we were using on the link between the two hosts. For reference, we're using a direct connection between a 40 gig QSFP+ NIC in each of our hosts. The issue was that the iSCSI connection between the two hosts would drop after about ten minutes during a full sync of the two storage arrays. The support tech was able to quickly identify the drivers as the issue to get it resolved quickly and prior to our production deadline.

We've used the solution for two months.

It's been very stable for our usage. We've had no issues since implementation two months ago.

I hear it scales well, however, we've not used it beyond our own small scale.

Technical support was very good.

Positive

Previously, we were using Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct across a three-node environment. We switched due to the fact that we sold a portion of our company and downsized to two nodes. Storage Spaces Direct doesn't seem ideal for a two-node system.

The initial setup was a bit confusing based on the documentation, however, support was very knowledgeable and able to assist with any issues and questions I had.

I implemented it myself with assistance from Starwind support. It's not a complex process.

Pricing is very simple and a setup walkthrough is included in the price of the software. It's a perpetual license and you only pay to renew support, which was a reasonable price.

We considered storage spaces direct, however, didn't ever implement it on our new two-node cluster.

I really can't overstate how responsive their support was.

This solution replaced some old IBM DS 3400 SANs that we had for many years and we used it to build new, highly available storage. Most of our servers use Hyper-V, and this solution is the storage backbone for our Hyper-V Clusters.

We use the virtual SAN piece of the solution because we're not hyper-converged, so I value the highly available storage that all of my clustered servers can see and utilize.

I had an occasion last year where I needed emergency support from them, and the support we normally pay for didn't cover it. I had to buy upgraded support, which was not a problem, but it wasn't a prorated amount, so I paid for the support, the full upgrade, but I only got a couple of months out of it because it was only good until renewal time. That kind of thing should either be prorated or extended past the renewal time, so whenever you buy it, you get a year's worth of upgraded support. That's my only real problem with them. Otherwise, I think they're pretty good.

I have been using this solution for five years.

The solution has been stable.

The solution is scalable. The version I have has unlimited storage, so as long as I have the space in my servers to add storage, then the solution will support it.

The initial setup was easy, but mainly because we didn't do it ourselves. We had the support team work through it with us when we set it up, and just by working with their support, we got everything up and running. Once we had the hardware set up and ready to go, it took a half a day or so to get everything configured with the install. Then, because of the size of our volumes, it took several days for them to sync, but we did the initial setup in a day.

Once the solution is set, you kind of forget about it because you don't need to touch it that often. Anytime I've needed to get back in there and add more volumes, or if I have any problems, I just call their support team, and we work through it together, so it's been pretty easy. I imagine if someone had to deal with it daily, it would probably be pretty easy to understand and work with, but we don't touch it that much.

ROI is difficult to quantify because we used this solution to replace really old IBM SAN hardware. We can do everything that we need to do with it, and I've had it five years and other than one time that I had to upgrade support, I've had to pay nothing extra. I consider the cost of ownership low, because anybody who has to have on-premises storage, especially if you want to be compliant with backups, needs something like this and I'm sure there's other solutions out there that do it, but this is what we chose and it's worked perfectly.

I have the Enterprise version, which has unlimited storage, and we have two nodes, or two servers where all the storage is replicated to each other. For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support. If you want higher tier support, that will cost a little more.

To any who are considering this solution, I'd say that I've been really impressed with it so far. I think it's pretty great, actually. It does exactly what we need it to do, and it does it well, so I would recommend it. Plus, the support has been very good.

I would rate this solution as a nine out of ten.

One of the biggest hydroelectric power plants in the world asked us to prepare a project using HA Virtualization for environmental weather monitoring. In this project, we used three hosts virtualized by VMWare ESXI+VCenter (Essential Plus License). However, one of the prerequisites was that it should be able to integrate with other preexisting virtualized systems that were deployed by other suppliers and use other hypervisors like HyperV or Proxmox. That is where StarWind Virtual SAN comes in. It is really flexible and reliable. We were able to assemble this pilot project using it, and it is in testing, so far, without failures or any malfunctions. It is really an excellent solution.

The flexibility of StarWind Virtual San allowed us to create a system that is integrated into pre-existing solutions and is also independent of VMware itself, making it more reliable and robust.  

It made the system much easier to operate, maintain and manage inside the data center alongside many other systems. It is very easy to migrate the entire virtual system to other hosts or other data centers safely. 

It is really a good solution when you need to be flexible and, at the same time, reliable in a critical system.

First of all, the flexibility and reliability are great. 

The ability to be managed by PowerShell scripts made the management of the system really easy and efficient. We're able to do remote operations or even some operations different from the standard ones (allowed by the GUI).

It also runs under a Windows OS, so it is able to be installed in any virtualized system, independent from the Hypervisor itself.

The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way. It also makes it very easy to deploy and configure. 

It has good documentation, and I did not need technical support once during the entire deployment.

It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery. I would also recommend an easier way to back up/restore and export the filesystem images.

Another feature that I would like to see implemented is a configurable email alert and report system. While it can be managed using Powershell, it would not be hard at all to configure reports using PowerShell scripts, it would be nice to have some additional features in the GUI.

I've used the solution for about two years.

It is really stable and reliable. It perfectly fits our solution with an active-active failover solution.

The free version is limited, so it is not so scalable. If you need more scalability, you have different license options from the paid versions and the cost is totally worth it.

I did not need any service and support as it is really well documented.

Positive

We also used VMware VSAN and Nutanix. The StarWind Virtual SAN seems to be more flexible and easier to manage in the case we were developing.

The initial setup took about ten days. This included the studying of the documentation, setup, testing, and commissioning. It is well-documented and really easy to operate.

We handled the initial setup in-house.

The Star Wind Virtual SAN has a free/trial version that can be used for study and is suitable for simple solutions. The pricing for the paid versions is really worth it. When you need flexibility and reliability with good technical support, you are paying for what you get. 

We also evaluated VMware vSAN.

I am using it to replace an end-of-life NetApp SAN after moving about half of our storage to the cloud. It is reducing the cost when it comes time to replace existing on-site storage (this was part of the cost justification of moving systems to the cloud but quotes provided by several vendors and consultants for replacement systems were actually more than what we paid for the EOL system six years ago). I was greatly relieved that I was able to deliver on my promise to reduce storage costs by half with StarWind vSAN.

We were able to reduce our on-site storage costs by roughly half what we paid for the previous NetApp SAN six years ago (with no noticeable loss of performance or loss of High Availability). This allowed us to help cost justify the investment we had already made in cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings with existing vendors without breaking the bank when it came time to replace our end-of-life NetApp SAN. Since only two VMWare ESXi host servers are required, it's allowing us to use local storage; we should also be able to replace the system again the next go around for a similar cost. 

The product only requires two VMWare ESXi host servers versus three host servers for VMware's comparable solution.  

We have detected zero loss of performance and we still have High Availability in place. vSAN has run smoothly with zero issues whatsoever so far.  

It's easy to administer.  

Support has been great with knowledgeable, helpful, and professional engineers responding quickly.  

I had initial concerns there might be a language barrier yet have had zero issues in this area. Communication has been great with both sales and service before and after the sale.

I struggled when bit figuring out how to go about doing the evaluation. It would have been helpful to have been able to watch a video or two showing a quick track way to do an evaluation including the easiest approach to take, benchmark tools to use, and step-by-step instructions on how to go about it.  

I asked for assistance and was sent information on some tools to use but I struggled with understanding the best way to use them. Having a live person suggest the best, most meaningful way to go about the evaluation based on my individual situation, would have been helpful too. 

I've used the solution for three months.

The stability is rock solid. There is no downtime so far and I have no performance issues.

The scalability seems solid. You could add nodes if needed.

Support is fantastic. It is quick, responsive, knowledgeable, and professional. 

Positive

We have a NetApp SAN. We switched as our storage was downsized by about half due to moving systems to the cloud and the SAN was EOL.

The initial setup was straightforward. A couple of hours on a remote support session with an engineer and we were up and running.

The solution was implemented in-house.

I'm not sure how to quantify ROI.

The setup cost was included with the price - so that was great! Buy from them directly rather than going through a reseller and you get 20% off.

We evaluated NetApp, Dell, SAN, and NAS solutions. All were way too costly.

Sales and support have been great to work with and the solution is solid without breaking the bank.

We set up a virtualized environment with the need for extreme flexibility and reliability to provide our IT-Services. 

We had to implement a solution that could take on this task and was very pleased with StarWind Virtual SAN. 

We could implement it into our environment easily with low maintenance and could focus on achieving our central task. 

It made our whole project a lot simpler and more user-friendly. We benefited from the scalability to expand our Service capability and were able to do so easily with StarWind vSAN.

We had a rough time using our previous solution. StarWind vSAN made our whole operation much easier and added a lot of particularly useful features. 

In our highly virtualized environment, we had a requirement for high flexibility due to our wide spectrum of services. 

StarWind vSAN was very easy to integrate into our system and ran flawlessly during our entire use time. 

Scaling our systems was something we'd been worried about before due to growing demands and the complicated software we had before. With StarWind vSAN, we could easily accomplish all of our tasks and could benefit from the amazing performance and reliability this software had to offer.

The web-user interface was very user-friendly, and it did not take a lot of time to school our employees about this product. 

All administrative tasks could easily be done, and integrating new systems was easier than ever before. 

This saves us a lot of time as even more complicated tasks can be resolved in way less time than before. We used vCenter and were very happy to see a dedicated vCenter plugin for StarWind vSAN. 

It made our whole operation much more smooth and reliable, not to mention the saved time on schooling employees.

I would say a point that could be improved upon would be the level of documentation and guides that are available. 

While we had no problems setting the system up, and service technicians from StarWind could assist us very well, they could provide some form of in-depth documentation. User guides would be greatly appreciated by all of us. 

Preferably these documents could be directly in the console. That said, I wouldn't mind having it not as tightly integrated. We have some apprentices that use the console, and we don't want to make them call support every time they don't understand something.

I've used the solution for six months.

It is very reliable, and we were confident storing data using StarWind vSAN.

The scalability is great. We were able to scale our systems effortlessly.

They were very friendly and helpful, staying professional and competent at all times.

Positive

We did use another solution. The previous solution was open source, and we needed some kind of real support on the other end to guarantee reliability.

The initial setup was very simple and straightforward. We were able to implement StarWind into our system, and we did not require special help.

We implemented it ourselves, in-house.

We prefer not to publish our ROI.

StarWind vSAN has great value and is definitely worth the price.

We did not evaluate other options. We used other software from StarWind beforehand and were convinced of the quality of their products, so the first thing we looked into was StarWind's solution to our problems.

I highly recommend the solution. It saves a lot of stress, hassle, and time.

I write this from a value-added reseller (VAR) point of view. 

StarWind Virtual SAN provides us with a number of benefits:

StarWind Virtual SAN is a cost-effective solution, as it does not require additional licensing costs. This can help VARs to offer competitive pricing to their customers.

StarWind Virtual SAN is a highly flexible solution, as it can be deployed on physical servers or on top of virtual machines running on hypervisors such as VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. This allows VARs to offer a solution that can be tailored to the specific needs of their customers.

From my point of view, we offer this product and it is installed, tested, and configured on our client hardware, often located in the public and private sectors in the UK. 

StarWind is known for its good technical support and customer service. This helps us to offer a solution that is supported by a reliable vendor, which in turn improves customer satisfaction and ensures sticky and repeat business for future activities. 

StarWind Virtual SAN fills a gap for our clients who can't justify the expensive hardware from Nutanix, HPE etc. Virtual SAN offers an opportunity to repurpose hardware or use non-badged hardware for a very high-end storage solution. This directly benefits my company and me since we are able to cater to this gap in the market.   

StarWind Virtual SAN supports both block and file storage protocols, which provides me with more options to choose from when placing Virtual SAN for a given role and client based on my customers' specific use cases and requirements. 

Data compression, deduplication, and snapshots help optimize storage utilization and protect data. 

This helps me to offer a solution that can help our customers to improve storage utilization and protect data at an affordable price, cutting out expensive enterprise-grade hardware.

Geolocation could be better, for example, for site mirroring for DR purposes. I would like a future release to explore the possibility of secure, reliable site replication. 

Disaster recovery site mirroring would provide several benefits, including business continuity. A disaster recovery site can be used to restore critical systems and operations in the event of a disaster, ensuring that the business can continue functioning.

The deduplication feature could also be more robust. That said, I am comparing it to the features of an HPE Nimble, which is a really unfair comparison given the cost difference.

I've used the solution for two to three years.

The software is very stable, and I have personally never witnessed downtime if the hardware use exceeds the minimum requirements.

The solution is not too scalable to geo-site redundancy. This could be a future feature.

Support is timely, knowledgeable, and has good availability with lots of different contact options including phone, email, web, etc.

Positive

We used to use VMware vSAN.

The guides and support are very detailed. There is a large community that also runs this in their home labs. They are giving lots of community feedback, ideas, and solutions to problems you may encounter.

I am speaking from a vendor point of view.

I would advise users to contact StarWind directly since we have always found they support pre and post-sales and are amazingly knowledgeable.  

We looked into various hardware and software offerings from Nutanix, NetApp, and HPE. StarWind fills the void when the budget does not allow for the expensive hardware, and we have older systems we can repurpose.