StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

We have used vSAN as an SDS storage solution with fiber channel JBOD chassis as hardware and integrated the SAN with HyperV to supply storage to VMs. 

The setup was required to expand our storage capabilities, and when looking for solutions, we wanted an SDS system for easier management of new disks and disk failures. 

Our system, therefore, consists of many disks with varying quality, which for us is the true benefit of vSAN since we now can trust different levels of degraded disks and still stay certain that we will not lose data.

We have been able to use more on-prem hardware to reduce cost and also use old disks that we do not trust enough for ordinary RAID or usage.

The storage system has been a great expansion of our capabilities to store large amounts of data since we previously relied on cloud storage which became exponentially more expensive as we expanded our data collection and our pipelines which required more virtual machines and hence more storage. 

With the web GUI available, it also became easier to monitor disk health instead of always logging in to the respective storage servers and checking status, which sometimes only was available during boot in raid controllers.

For us, the SAN solution needed to integrate well with HyperV since that is what we currently use - although we are planning to add an ESXi hypervisor which made vSAN optimal (since it is hypervisor-agnostic and we can select whatever hypervisor we want in the future without the need to redo our storage system).

Furthermore, we have a lot of fiber channel disks lying around, which we had no good use of. Therefore vSAN was great since we could easily integrate these into our storage system and also distribute block storage via fiber channel to the hypervisors and other storage-requiring servers.

The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved. It took some time to get it up and running; however, when running, it worked well. 

The setup is done in PowerShell and requires quite some knowledge about how to navigate windows through Powershell. Fortunately, there were scripts available to help out. That said, the documentation was not that thorough in helping me understand the scripts. This is definitely room for improvement since it would be nice to quickly get up a demo of the SAN running to evaluate if it works as one expects, which it did in our case.

I've used the solution for two months.

The scalability is great. It integrates with all hypervisors, and disks can easily be added.

It was far from the easiest implementation; however, we got it working.

We implemented the solution in-house.

We looked into TrueNAS and Windows storage spaces.

The product is for clients who require high availability of their servers, from file servers and domain controllers, through to line of business applications.

I've done installations of two-node HA clusters running Windows Server Hyper-V. With the HA cluster we then ran virtual machines, both Windows Desktop, Windows Server, CentOS and Ubuntu. We have installed on pysical servers with both DELL PowerEdge and HP Proliant server hardware (Windows clustering requires exact server hardware to be matched - so two-node DELL, and two-node HP).

As an MSP, stability is important for our clients. StarWind's virtual SAN solution has allowed us to have an always-on architecture allowing survivability of hardware failure. We install it for all clients who need high availability of their virtual servers on-premise.

Given the high availability of the server cluster, we were able to reduce separate physical servers onto one hyper-converged cluster - this saved in OPEX and CAPEX costs immediately, along with licensing costs of the Windows Server licenses.

We have multiple sites running StarWindws Virtual SAN, which have been running for years without any issue.

The thing that impressed me the most about the product is the technical support from the vendor. Everyone knows the benefit of high-availability clusters, but setting one up and reading the documentation is an enormous task in itself.

With StarWind Virtual SAN and the installation support, we have high-availability clusters running within a couple of hours. This has been repeated over and over on many customer sites, so they have their process perfected in this regard.

The documentation could be clearer in terms of explaining the installation, although I will make two comments on this.

The high availability of virtual SAN is by its very nature not a simple drop-in thing, so the documentation will understandably be complex.

Secondly, the installation process is completely guided and done remotely by StarWind certified installation engineers, who handle all aspects.

Given the above, the only thing I can really say needs improvement is that I am not keen on the pricing per storage tier model, however, understand this is a common model charged.

I've done multiple client installations over five years.

No, there was no other solution that we have tried.

Consider how much space you will need as pricing is per node and data.

No, we found the price point compelling, which led to immediately trying StarWinds versus traditional SAN costs from DELL and HP, etc.

Overall it has been a great product and company to work with for the past five years and many more to come.

We have a small private cloud for providing hosting to our clients. This allowed us to simplify our architecture in a way that previously required dedicated SAN hardware. 

The ability to migrate data and machines as we would with a central SAN is very helpful and has reduced our overall hardware costs, reduced our management costs, and provided additional uptime for our clients. 

We have two nodes currently with dedicated networking between them. This allows for quick migration and agile upgrades in the future. 

This has allowed us to spend less on hardware yet still have the same functionality of a full SAN. We will be able to provide additional uptime for our clients because of vSAN. 

Previously we were unable to migrate between nodes in our environment. This solution allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN. 

We hope in the long run that we will be able to deploy this to our other nodes and save additional time and expense there. 

The ability to use two servers as a cluster instead of having to have a dedicated SAN environment to achieve the same results has been great. This has allowed us to spend less on hardware yet still have the same functionality of a full SAN. 

We will be able to provide additional uptime for our clients thanks to vSAN. 

Previously we were unable to migrate between nodes in our environment. This product now allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN. 

We hope in the long run that we will be able to deploy this to our other nodes and save additional time and expense there.

We ran into an issue with alerts. The system uses email to send alerts, and we are a Microsoft 365 shop. They were not able to send them, thanks to the latest TLS updates at Microsoft. We were able to use a third-party SMTP relay in the meantime, however. 

Additionally, there was no way to send different levels of alerts, from informational to license to critical. This will require us to monitor each log generated as anyone could be critical coming across. They believe this will be incorporated into their next build and releases. 

I've been using the solution for one month.

In our remote offices, we have two servers on VMware. With no HA for the 10 VMs, StarWind VSAN came to use to address this need. As I had previous experience with it and truly believed that this was the best option, I set up our first remote site and used it for three months on a test. I used that time to gather information on my company's use and tested fail-over, replication, and sync. I was concerned about network usage for replication in my company due to the volume of VMs and data modification needed to replicate; it turns out it was never an issue.

It provided the much-needed HA on an extremely low budget. 

There was always a need to have HA in our remote offices. However, it was never addressed due to a lack of budget. For a time, we experienced faults due to failing hardware, and, finally, when the budget allowed, we started using StarWind vSAN and never experienced outages again. 

As we adopted StarWind vSAN we also replaced some hardware that was the root cause of our problems. Nevertheless, StarWind vSAN provided me the certainty of reliability and much-needed tranquility to sleep again.

The reliability is the most valuable aspect of the solution. It does not need constant babysitting as it is stable as you need it to be. In our company, the team is small, and we do not have the time to keep checking everything all the time. As unadvised as it is, I simply do not have time to always monitor and check. With this product, I have gone months without even accessing the management console. Support is also reliable, and it is necessary to know you can trust it! I've not used it much; however, the few times that I did, it provided me with the help and guidance I needed.

The documentation can be better for the free tier. I've learned that in my home lab. To be fair, I cannot imagine anyone that will use this without performing several tests beforehand. Overall, documentation can be more explanatory and straightforward. That said, it is not bad, it just can be better.

I honestly like that the product is simple and does the job well; for the next release, I hope they keep it that way.

I've used the solution for several years now. I've started using the free edition on my home lab and never let it go. I still use it today at home. I'm decommissioning at my company as we are removing the servers of our remote offices.

I did not use a different solution. After researching my needs, I found a post guiding the simple home lab test use, and it was good enough. I've tested it, loved it, and never looked back.

The setup costs depend on your approach. I like to test everything, and as I do this, I learn. I like to implement everything, so the cost is time allocation in my case. In my company, this is a good investment. As for price and license, there is not much room for negotiation.

I did not evaluate other options. 

Go for it; it is awesome.

I purchased a StarWind Hyper-Converged Appliance from StarWind in order to fulfill a multitude of needs for my end client. Chief among them was that the system would be a rather small installation. 

Compared to a traditional configuration using three Servers and a SAN, the StarWind HCA allowed me to provide the user with two Server boxes that could handle their redundancy requirements in a fraction of the space and with a significant cost reduction. 

The installation called for using a VMware vSphere that would house about a dozen VMs with redundancy for every component involved in the system. The reduced size of this installation also made it possible to install the HCA alongside the existing servers so that they could be removed at the client's leisure when they were comfortable with the new installation.

StarWind Virtual SAN, and specifically its implementation in their StarWind Hyper-Converged Appliance, gave us a competitive advantage in the bidding process. This is specifically true for smaller installations where the economies of scale of having a centralized SAN and compute-only boxes don't have a chance to kick in. 

In addition to the StarWind solution allowing you to save on the hardware by only requiring two boxes containing all components, it allows us to avoid the unfortunately expensive solution provided by VMware for their own virtual SAN solution.

The StarWind Virtual SAN provides a clever and unique solution to the Computing Split Brain problem. A split brain occurs when two machines in a redundancy scenario have lost their connection to each other yet have maintained connection to the clients. This causes both devices to think they are running as the master, and their configurations will drift apart from each other, making reintegration all but impossible. Instead of using a third client as a witness, they have solved this problem by creating a secondary heartbeat signal to be carried on an independent hardware NIC, thus solving the problem.

The only current drawback that I see for the configuration as it stands is that it can be a little complicated to configure compared to other, more traditional solutions. 

If it were up to me, I would focus on streamlining a vSphere appliance for configuring the virtual storage machines. 

I would also like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure. Currently, it requires you to jump in and out of virtual environments placing storage components on or offline, and all steps must be done in their proper order, or you can create an issue. It seems to me that this could be integrated into an add-on for vSphere that could handle the details of the startup/shutdown procedure more gracefully and with less manual intervention.

We've used the solution for about two years.

I did not experience any stability issues

This solution has the ability to scale into very large systems. However, it really shines in the small to mid-size range.

Customer service gets back to you promptly and is highly knowledgeable.

Positive

In most instances, I have used a regular vSphere running a SAN and multiple compute hosts. I haven't precisely switched. I'd say that you need to provide the right solution for the end client, and in smaller installs, specifically, the efficiency gains in space and cost of the StarWind Virtual SAN can be hard to beat.

The initial setup for the StarWind Hyper-Converged Architecture I purchased was largely done either by StarWind or with their assistance. If I had to do the whole thing myself, it would have taken me quite some time based on the complexity. They do have good documentation and videos, so it would not have been an insurmountable task.

We mainly did an in-house implementation.

I didn't calculate ROI. I can only state that it was about 30% cheaper for the end client than the alternative.

Do your comparison shopping, and if you are working on a small system trying to ensure redundancy, that will almost certainly bring you back to StarWind.

For the application, I compared it to a regular vSphere SAN. However, I did not compare it to other Hyper-Converged solutions. At the time, it was pretty clear that they had a long track record and a good reputation which aided in deciding on them as a solution.

Before you deliver this to an end client, make absolutely sure that you provide adequate documentation about how to start up and shut down the system. That part can be a little bit tricky and requires you to do things in the proper order.

StarWind is used as our primary physical server with nine VMs. This serves different locations around the US. 

One application is shared using RDS where as before it was being shared using individual pcs for each remote user. This caused major issues with data integrity.

Also with the two-node environment, not only are we benefitting from the redundancy, we are able to load balance between the servers. This allowed us to bring our hosted ERP environment in house. 

The price was right. It is very hard to beat this system! 

We had a very dated infrastructure. One that had been a hodge-podge over many years with no clear direction or future needs planning. 

I was brought on board to correct this and give us some growing room in the future. As the business continues to grow at this time, redundancy/DR planning became a significant focus as well.

StarWind, with a low-cost two-node HCA system, was truly turnkey.

With the redundancy and efficiency of the software and servers, we are running better than ever, with room to grow.

The ease of use of the system overall. If you don't understand something or need any help at all, support is there. I cannot speak highly enough to the value the support team offers. They are very knowledgeable and willing to help. They work on your time, not theirs. I agree with some other reviews that they can be hard to understand at times, however, they are more than willing to make sure you understand. 

The redundancy is a big factor. As a very small IT department, that gives us the peace of mind needed as well as knowing that support is there to help me through any glitches.

Though I have learned some of the nuances with the upgrading of firmware/windows/etc., it would be nice to have a more efficient method of doing so. Though truthfully, it's not bad.

I have had to call support to help me through some of the updates, so I know they are done right.

A missed SSD update caused a few headaches. That said, thanks to support, no data loss occurred, and considering the issue, we had minimal downtime.

Overall, I find StarWind above par and am excited to see what they think of next.

I've used the solution for 1.5 years.

Support is nothing but stellar. The support staff is very knowledgeable and willing to help.

Positive

The initial setup is very straightforward.

We implemented it through a vendor team. The experience was extremely positive!

The initial cost included setup, and it was genuinely turnkey. It would be hard to find a lower-cost solution that offers what Starwind offers.

The primary purpose of the storage area network is to provide an active-active replicated SAN for Virtual infrastructure and file storage. This has replaced an active-passive infrastructure that relied on a competitive storage solution but was too old and inflexible to meet the company's growing needs. The active-active nature of the plan needed a reliable storage solution that could deliver over a large distance as such additional infrastructure was also needed. The outstanding support helped us achieve this goal. 

We went from an active-passive model. This has resulted in us being in a much better position. It has allowed us to meet business continuity needs; half of the infrastructure can go out of operation without impacting the business, or we can use this to perform planned updates and maintenance. 

StarWind SANs, along with their amazing support, really helped us achieve these improvements. When implementing this solution, we experienced firsthand how good the solution was; we applied some massive configuration updates without business downtime.

StarWind SANs provide fast and reliable storage. Migration from the old system has meant the storage is much faster now. In turn, this has improved our virtual infrastructure's reliability and access times.

StarWind SANs come with outstanding support. We decided halfway through to change the implementation in a major way, contacted their support, and found that they understood what we were trying to achieve and offered the best help and guides. Not only did they help us, however, they also provided remote assistance where necessary.

This currently relies on a virtual machine. This may be migrated to a container approach or integrated into the solution in the future. However, this isn't really a large area of concern. 

A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is.  

You need to know what you are doing to get this set up. It could have a wizard-like setup for basic scenarios. This would need to be able to be skipped, however for advanced setups.  

I've used the solution for a few months.

We used to use Netapp and switched due to the cost and reliability.

We did look into a Netapp upgrade.

I'd advise others to use their support; it really is great.