StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

Our primary use case for StarWind is providing our clients with a cost-effective HA storage solution utilizing existing virtualization technology already installed at the client site.

In the past, we have used other solutions. However, StarWind is our go-to and only virtual SAN solution at this point due to a number of factors which include reliability, simplicity, and the completeness of the offering. 

Further, StarWind has made no moves towards acquisition which was a large concern for us as previous vendors were acquired which ended our relationships.

StarWind has provided us with a top-notch, well-supported, robust vSAN offering when other vendors have moved to hyper-converged solutions that are outside of our average clients' reach from a financial and resource perspective. We are able to roll out solutions with confidence with StarWind as a partner.

StarWind has also provided us with a very stable platform that is extremely well-supported. Their support staff excels at identifying issues and guiding us to best practices ensuring each of our clients receives an excellent experience.

The level of confidence and support within the StarWind organization is second to none.

The simplicity of scaling the StarWind solution has also been a boon for us.  In the past, most solutions relied on a per GB or per TB model while StarWind is a simple licensing structure per node. This has enabled us to scale clients' infrastructure as needed without being concerned about running into an artificial ceiling. 

When StarWind considered a pricing model change we discussed and worked with them to ensure that the solutions and changes prevented did not have a negative impact. They are a true partner.  

We have, in rare cases, received conflicting guidance between different support folks within StarWind. The guidance is always pertinent. However, you can tell there are times when it's just a matter of preference from engineer to engineer. Although not a detriment to the product offering, it creates some minor quandaries within our own organization as to best practices.

Overall a simplified support model where each engineer provides a similar answer and not "what works for them" would be beneficial however the difference in style of each engineer has not had a negative impact on us.

We have been using this solution for five or more years.

We utilized HPE Lefthand vSAN as well as VMware vSAN. As noted previously, these products were simply not a good fit for us or were phased out.

Look at their HA appliances. The cost for these is competitive enough to our own hardware that we have begun to lean on these appliances as opposed to rolling and supporting our own.

We did. We evaluated a number of solutions which I won't name here. StarWind came out on top.

StarWind is an excellent solution with top-tier support.

We exclusively use StarWind vSAN for our virtualization data stores. We have:

VMware: 50 physical hosts, 500 virtual machines
Hyper-V: 10 physical hosts, 100 virtual machines
Internal SAN: 250 users, 50 shares
Disaster Recovery: off-site replication

We currently have 75 data stores across 24 servers.

Primary Performance Cluster:
Eight 72 SSD chassis and a 512 GB RAM cache
A-A-A (three-way high-availability) across servers

Primary Storage Cluster:
Four 36 HDD chassis and a 512 GB RAM cache
A-A-A (three-way high-availability) across servers

StarWind vSAN has allowed us to grow rapidly while still providing flexibility and reliability. We have not had a complete outage since migrating in 2012. I cannot recommend them enough.

We have completely rebuilt and upgraded our storage infrastructure five times. We could migrate data seamlessly in our live environment without downtime.

We primarily use Supermicro hardware for our storage servers, although not exclusively.

Having a solution that is flexible enough to synchronize between many different hardware vendors is extremely valuable.

The three-way high availability (A-A-A) is very useful.

I have never found another product that can provide this redundancy and performance.

We have a complex and demanding environment that requires the ability to scale out while in production. We have utilized StarWind to achieve those needs.

We were the victim of a ransomware attack that was devastating. StarWind ensured we were completely unaffected and it preserved our virtualization environment. Our SAN was completely encrypted, but with off-site asynchronous replication, we were able to restore all our files quickly.

There is no IPv6 support. That is our only issue at this time.

The support team is exceptional, and we have always been able to overcome any of the technical issues we have had. I cannot recommend them enough!

Our wish list includes:

• A Linux install package for vSAN (not just a VM)
• Central management that supports all of the StarWind services and can provide a network operations level dashboard with customizable alerts (possibly with a mobile app companion with push notifications)
• IPv6 support
  

I've used the solution since 2012.

Scalability is one of the things we absolutely love about StarWind. We have scaled from two servers providing 20 TB to 24 servers providing 2 PB.

I have talked to all levels of support over the years, including the developers. They have an amazing product and an exceptional support team.

Positive

We did use something else and originally switched as no other solution at the time had real high availability. Most products just offered fail-over options.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward.

We have evolved into a much more complex environment over time.

We handled the setup in-house.

We have been using StarWind since 2012. Our ROI was seen within the first six months.

Users should know that licensing can be reallocated as you retire old servers. I recommend always buying unlimited licenses as needed unless you think you can utilize their data center license.

We looked into:

• Open-E
• HPE
  
• VMware
• Microsoft

I'd advise others to download their evaluation and test it in multiple scenarios. You will fall in love with their product!

We have utilized StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN) as an iSCSI server alternative in a Hyper-V based installation. We ran a 30-day trial license in a lab environment. The StarWind vSAN solution was used as a software-defined iSCI storage solution for an imminent SQL Server cluster installation. This allowed us for a fairly quick integration solution for our SQL Server cluster shared disk requirements, without the need to invest in a high-cost Storage Area Network (SAN) solution. 

It is a good practice to use storage performance evaluation tools, such as Microsoft DiskSPD, to evaluate IOPS metrics and perform stress testing in a lab environment with synthetic transactions for your prospective application. In our case, we conducted synthetic transactions for stress testing to prepare for a SQL server failover cluster installation.

There are various reasons that led us to pick StarWind vSAN for our implementation. 

Firstly, because it offers a robust iSCSI-based virtual server which is software-defined and comes at a fraction of the cost, as compared to buying an expensive hardware Storage Area Network (SAN). 

Secondly, because it is compatible with KVM. We do implementations based on the KVM hypervisor besides HyperV and VMware, and StarWind vSAN is among a limited number of platforms which offer native support for KVM. 

Last but not least, it offers a fully functional trial license to test the product in a lab environment in a variety of deployment options, including both Linux-based virtual appliances and Windows-based executables.

StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN) offers a significant breadth of features. The ones which were the most significant and value-adding in our topology and implementation included the overall admin and user-friendliness of the solution and the rapid deployment times gave us a platform for a very quick-to-market solution for our SQL Server cluster-based applications. It allowed us to develop a solution in less than 30 days with less than one-third of the overall estimated cost investment compared to a traditional hardware-based SAN.

The StarWind vSAN solution is versatile and offers broad support for different hypervisors and deployment formats. During our evaluation of our on-premises setup, we did not find any significant flaws. 

One point for improvement is to increase the performance capabilities of the Windows-based executable as compared to its Linux Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) equivalent. 

Another point for improvement would be to incorporate a more granular Role-based access control system (RBAC) natively inside the software to allow for more granular administration. 

Yet another point would be to achieve tighter integration and automation with cloud-based platforms, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

I have used StarWind vSAN installations in a lab environment on many occasions over the past five years; the most recent of which was during a 30-day trial run in 2024.

There have been no dropouts nor any downtime during the deployment and during the evaluation operations of the product with our SQL Server cluster instances.

StarWind vSAN performs steadily under heavy usage and can scale well if needed to support larger-scale systems. In our case it supported a significant number of clustered SQL Server instances without any issues in scaling up when needed.

The customer service and sales team have been very responsive and helpful throughout the evaluation of the product.

Positive

We have used hardware-based SAN solutions based on the IBM V5000 series. We did not switch this solution. We continue to trust IBM V5000 and V7000 solutions for higher-end implementations, where budget is not an issue. In cases of lower budget and quick time-to-market implementations, though, StarWind vSAN has helped us make good progress.

The setup was straight forward in most aspects and it was based on a well documented step-by-step procedure, which was provided by the vendor.

Implementation was an in-house one.

Make the most of your 30-day trial license, and if needed, you should contact the sales department of StarWind to extend the trial license or upgrade to a full license. 

We based our decision on previous positive experience with StarWind vSAN. Also due to brevity of time and tight project timeframe, there was no sufficient time for evaluating other options.

I would advise that you implement the Linux-based Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) during your evaluation phase, since the expected performance metrics are better, as compared to Windows-based executable. 

As per StarWind software documentation, the Linux-based CVM offers a a wide range of features, better performance, and stability, including reduced CPU usage and lower I/O latency.

Hyperconverged lab and testing environments fulfill several special requirements for use cases. We use it for demonstration environments and for virtualization and containerization. We have a rather smaller footprint, ranging from two to three nodes over the years. 

Mainly, we have an edge use case. Another use case is refurbishing and second lifecycle evaluation, specifically I/O and disaster recovery capabilities, which are important in these lab environments. 

Modernization could also be counted as a use case since modernizing data centers on small-scale or edge deployments is becoming increasingly important, even for smaller businesses.

For my organization, StarWind vSAN has been a first of firsts in hyper-converged storage and has been, first and foremost, a technology demonstrator that should disclose and present the advantages of modern data center constellations. 

Over the years, it has also functioned as a lab environment and customer demonstrator specifically for refurbishing old hardware and educational objects for our internal apprentices, effectively transforming our mindset towards modern data center infrastructure. It also served as a proof of concept for refurbishing and cost-reducing existing infrastructures.

I have found the overall ergonomy and manageability outstanding during normal functioning. Specifically, the console GUI's monitoring and configuring capabilities can be counted towards that. 

Even when not administrated via GUI, the comprehensive Powershell automation module remains, which comes with templates prepopulated for the most common automation tasks. 

Furthermore, the solution provides great performance for the price it is listed with and can even run properly without proper hardware, however, it is even more efficient and performs better when procuring proper hardware is possible.

My impression has been mostly positive. However, there have been some pitfalls. For example, it runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear. This consequently follows a long learning curve and can take some time until this can be done efficiently. 

The feature log-structured file system has been removed. While I have not used it, I know some colleagues who have reported some performance benefits under certain circumstances. 

Additionally, vSAN does not offer extended SAN features like inline deduplication, compression, or S3-compatible access, which is part of most modern SAN feature sets, also in hyper-converged scenarios.

I have been using several editions of the solution for more than five years.

The stability of this solution is vastly dependent on the hardware procured beforehand. Network hardware is especially important, and bad or glitchy hardware (like the Intel X700 or X800 series) can quickly break things. It runs—until it does not. Be sure to learn or consult about the disaster recovery process, especially if you decide on a witness strategy hosted in vSAN.

The software can be pretty scalable; however, after reaching more and more nodes, one may look at StarWind's hyperconverged appliance instead of going through the hassle of administrating separate systems.

They have only friendly and positive experiences, always a helping hand. Also, they are offering proactive support, which, from the experience of some of my colleagues, is an outstanding experience unusual to many professional service providers.

Neutral

We did not use a different solution beforehand.

The initial setup was very straightforward and easy, although one could deep dive into the specific protocol configuration options. Also, I would have liked it if some features or procedures would have been better documented at the time.

We implemented it through our in-house R&D team.

I will not publish accurate numbers. However, the modernization aspect in terms of lab infrastructure and testing/demonstration environments has an educational benefit, strengthening our consultancy, demonstrating capabilities and our mindset towards data center innovation.

I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. 

Also, consider the paid version if you want the ease of management through the console GUI and not just use it for monitoring. 

You can also apply for a testing or NFR license if you want to test it. StarWind vSAN is, by list price, vastly more competitive than some comparable solutions. The setup may be straightforward, fast, and easy; however, it can break things down if not done properly. Before setup, be sure to procure proper hardware components that are not known to cause instabilities.

Due to budget constraints, Ceph has been evaluated as an alternative. We also took a look at Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and VMware vSAN.

Consider StarWind's proactive support. It improves the software's already high value and defuses the long learning curve of some processes! When clustering resources, deeply consider your witness strategy! Especially when you can not guarantee 100% stable hardware (e.g., through firmware issues), this can break things very quickly if you have a witness device in the same vSAN.

We successfully virtualized our entire company's data infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN. This implementation allowed us to consolidate and optimize our storage environment, improving overall efficiency and reducing operational costs associated with managing and maintaining a traditional SAN.

StarWind Virtual SAN seamlessly integrates with our existing hypervisors, providing us with a fault-tolerant and high-performance storage pool for our virtualized environments. 

The most valuable feature we found was the ease of use. This aspect greatly simplified the setup and management of our storage environment, ensuring smooth and efficient operations. While the solution has been instrumental in enhancing our storage infrastructure, we believe there is room for improvement in certain areas. Improvements in documentation and support resources could further enhance the user experience. Integration with containerization platforms to support modern application development practices would also be beneficial. 

More advanced configuration options would cater to our specific needs. Looking ahead, we believe that future releases of Virtual SAN could benefit from additional features such as enhanced monitoring and reporting capabilities, integration with cloud storage providers, and support for automated data tiering. 

Overall, StarWind Virtual SAN has significantly improved the efficiency and reliability of our storage infrastructure, and we anticipate further enhancements in future releases.

We utilize StarWind Virtual SAN for managing the storage area network (SAN) in our data centers. The solution enables us to ensure a fault-tolerant and high-performance storage pool to support the needs of our virtualized environments. Its seamless integration with our existing hypervisors allows us to efficiently and reliably manage the storage resources required for our virtualized applications and workloads. 

StarWind offers a free version, allowing users to test the product without any initial investments. This version runs on top of existing hypervisors and hardware, making it ideal for test and development processes in the pre-production stage. Users can easily upgrade to a commercial version later, ensuring a seamless transition without disruptions.

The most valuable aspects of the solution include:

Simplified setup and management: StarWind Virtual SAN offers ease of use, simplifying the setup and management of storage environments. 

Seamless integration: It seamlessly integrates with existing hypervisors, providing fault-tolerant storage for virtualized environments. 

Cost savings: Virtualizing data infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN improves efficiency and reduces operational costs. We successfully virtualized our entire company's data infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN. This implementation allowed us to consolidate and optimize our storage environment, improving overall efficiency and reducing operational costs associated with managing and maintaining a traditional SAN.

The solution could improve:

Documentation and support: Improvements in documentation and support resources could enhance the user experience. 

Advanced configuration options: More advanced configuration options may be needed to cater to specific needs. 

Feature expansion: This could include:

• Integration with containerization platforms for modern application development practices could be beneficial. 
• Enhanced monitoring and reporting capabilities to provide more insights into the performance and health of the storage environment. 
• Integration with cloud storage providers to enable hybrid cloud deployments and data tiering capabilities. 
• Support for automated data tiering to optimize storage utilization and performance based on usage patterns. 
• Advanced data protection features such as encryption at rest and in transit to ensure data security and compliance. 
• Integration with containerization platforms to support modern application development practices.

I've used the solution for six months.

We built a two-server Hyper-V failover cluster. We build typical servers like we normally would with NVME drives and plenty of storage. This software works hand in hand with Microsoft hyper-v failover manager for a seamless setup that has not given us any issues since implementation. 

Live failovers are tested every week, and the customer does not even notice when the failovers are tested. The performance was exceptional, and everything worked as expected. We went ahead and got the three-year 24/7 support contract since it's a critical customer. While the price is a bit steep, this process and product have given us a lot of peace of mind that the servers will continue running even if one of the physical hosts goes down.

It's a very easy Implementation with the help of support. We received quick responses from support for any questions we had throughout the entire process. StarWind is a stable product that allowed us to build the cluster exactly like we wanted hardware-wise. This product has allowed us to build a two-node failover cluster without a SAN. 

We also did not need the datacenter edition of server OS. We were very worried about the implementation process. However, they helped us with the entire implementation, leaving no stone unturned and all questions answered.

Overall, it was a great experience dealing with the various StarWind team members from the pre-sales all the way through to implementation. This was our first experience with a hyper-converged failover cluster, and the team at StarWind made it easy for us. 

Before making the choice, we were weighing out all the cluster options, and everything kept coming back to StarWind. I'm glad it did, as we definitely feel we made the right choice. We test live failovers every week, and so far, everything has been running smoothly without anything unexpected.

Pricing is a bit high. That said, the support is worth it. It's really hard to point out any other negatives. The licensing and support pricing structure could have been laid out a little simpler, and then pricing could have been less, of course. However, the truth is the support really does make up for the cost, in our opinion. We did decide to go with three-year 24/7 support due to implementation in a critical communications center. We feel like we won't need to use them for much at all since the products just work. Due to this, the pricing could have been better, especially with us purchasing all three years at once.

I've used the solution for one year. 

We needed redundancy in our "dark" environment. A failover cluster was the best solution for us. We have a complicated infrastructure consisting of various v-hosts and over 40 VMs in all kinds of operating systems. 

For continuity, it was necessary to update our VMs without any downtime. It's installed on two v-hosts with the most important machines. This way, we can continue operations without hick-ups. We chose StarWind as it's independent of the hardware used in our v-hosts. We did look at other solutions; however, in the end, StarWind VSAN was the best choice for us.

We needed a redundant solution for our environment, and it was sufficient to have a two-node cluster. 

The implementation went flawlessly with the help of StarWind support. However, technical knowledge is mandatory. Nevertheless, we had a quick installation. Since we had lots of different types of storage available, we were able to assign different types of storage depending on the type of usage for the virtual machines. 

We already had an unexpected outage of one of the nodes due to a memory problem, and thanks to StarWind vSAN, our operations continued as expected. It's an easy way to keep your failover cluster monitored.

StarWind vSAN is easy to use and has a very clear GUI. The most valuable in StarWind vSAN is the way it works seamlessly with the Microsoft fail-over cluster. 

We are working with a two-node setup that suits our needs perfectly. It just works without any technical know-how needed. 

The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items. 

It's also easy to add an extra node if necessary or connect if you've rebooted one of the nodes. Also, the speed of support is very valuable to us. If you have a problem or question, you'll get almost an immediate answer.

The product is as good as it promises. 

StarWind vSAN is updated on a regular basis, probably to keep up with Microsoft Windows or other operating systems. As far as I'm concerned, there should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed. 

In our dark environment, this is impossible as we don't have any mail server available in our infrastructure, which consists of a few v-hosts, redundant storage, and quite a few virtual machines, all running on Microsoft OS.

I've used the solution for three years.

In my company, we employ a sophisticated infrastructure comprised of three distinct hypervisors and a dedicated storage server featuring vSAN technology. This intricate setup serves as the backbone for delivering a diverse range of services to our clients, encompassing web hosting plans, secure and efficient file sharing, compute power, and bespoke storage solutions. 

Leveraging the flexibility of multiple hypervisors allows us to scale our services to meet the unique requirements of our clients, ensuring optimal performance and resource allocation. 

It also acts as the centralized storage for my home environment as well. Within my home setup, this robust virtualized storage solution plays a role in supporting various functionalities, including the storage and retrieval of data from surveillance cameras. 

It also provides a seamless and efficient solution for personal storage requirements, showcasing the versatility and scalability of my Virtual SAN configuration.

Hypervisor offers agnosticism for flexibility. My company could seamlessly transition workloads on VMware without worrying about storage compatibility issues.

It has dynamic workload management. As business requirements change, my company might need to migrate virtual machines (VMs) between two or three (or more) hypervisors based on performance, licensing, or other considerations. With Virtual SAN, I can easily move VMs without the need for complex storage transformations and involving other solutions.

The customizability and reliability of Virtual SAN setup in our infrastructure stand out as the key pillars supporting the seamless delivery of services to my clients. 

The ability to provide my virtualization environment to meet specific client needs ensures that we can meet diverse requirements, from web hosting plans to file sharing and storage solutions. This degree of customization not only enhances the client experience but also allows us to optimize resource utilization and calculate future improvements.

Moreover, the reliability of Virtual SAN plays a critical role in maintaining the stability and availability of my services. The redundant and fault-tolerant features in the Virtual SAN architecture provide a resilient infrastructure that minimizes downtime and ensures a consistent and reliable service for my clients.

Embarking on a 14-day GUI trial is a good approach for enabling an exploration of Virtual SAN's capabilities. This period can facilitate a better understanding of real-world performance, interface, and overall system suitability. 

By affording users the opportunity to dive deeply into the product's features, this trial can ensure a comprehensive evaluation, regarding the adoption of Virtual SAN.

An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration.

I've only used the solution for one year.