Deputy Director at a government with 11-50 employees
Real User
2019-12-20T06:36:00Z
Dec 20, 2019
The cost of deployment is minimal, almost a product out of the box. The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important.
I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it. If you like it then you will definitely like the more advanced, full paid version.
Setup is simple, so it's cheap. Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing.
The licensing is pretty simple, and the costs are straightforward. Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs.
The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available. Use the trial version before buying. Contact StarWind support in case of questions or issues. The support is very good.
I was so impressed by what I saw, because at first, you set it up for free. I set it up for free to see how it worked, because I was losing nothing but time. After I set it up, and everything worked, I was like, "Okay, I don't need anything else for this. Let's get the licensing and go." The pricing is more than reasonable. The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight. However, that is just one drive size upwards in an array. You are first going from two terabyte drives to four terabyte drives, then you will soon be going to eight terabyte drives and upwards, for SSDs which are coming out. Therefore, it is weird that they have the middle tier in there, their pro tier. Then, they have their enterprise, which is unlimited. I can see their licensing better structured if their lower tier either had less drive space or the middle tier had more, by maybe a factor of four rather than doubling it. From a sales and marketing point of view, the difference between going from pro to unlimited is unclear. It seems like, "Why not just go unlimited? Why even have the middle tier there?"
IT Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
2019-01-24T09:35:00Z
Jan 24, 2019
The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go.
For pricing, you have two things that come into it: * The cost of the hardware. * The software licensing pricing. When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at. This wasn't our only criteria, as you don't want to buy the cheapest thing, then find out you have a problem. Also, StarWind isn't the cheapest solution out there, but it is certainly cost-effective relative to the major players. I haven't seen any difference in quality overall. StarWind works as well as any of the major players would have for us. The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity. Going forward, we will probably pay for a license upgrade, then we can add more capacity. We just haven't done it yet.
Deputy Director of Technology and Communications at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Real User
2019-01-23T11:26:00Z
Jan 23, 2019
The pricing is fine for the work that it does. I have had no issues. When we bought it three to four years ago for what we needed, it was literally cheaper than the alternative which was ten times the amount and took up physical space. The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running.
Operations Manager at Lipman Insurance Administrators Inc.
Real User
2018-12-05T01:01:00Z
Dec 5, 2018
I have not seen any other storage solution that delivers the features that StarWind does for anywhere near the price. Licensing and support costs are very simple and straightforward.
Be very clear in what you want. I was misquoted what I needed and ended up having to go back to the boss two times. And was running crippled while doing that. It was not pretty. Make sure they know what you have and what you want. Especially sizes. --This really only applies if you do the FREE method first.
As a nonprofit with a limited budget, we are very satisfied with the licensing model provided by StarWind. The initial setup was quick and mostly effortless. Additionally, the support has been superb on the few occasions we've had to reach out to them.
The use of the StarWind solution does not have to be just a strictly IT domain. In my case, we needed to find and implement a solution that guaranteed the supervision of security systems in the scenario of a full disaster of our main center of supervision. To achieve that, we needed to use technology that would give us fast and reliable data replication between two supervision centers and would not ruin our security department budget. On the other hand, the solution must be easy to administrate with the tools we had. StarWind Virtual SAN was a bulls-eye. Now, we can transfer the full spectrum of information to remote infrastructure that allows us to ensure continuity, which means better security for the company. The StarWind Virtual SAN management console is intuitive and easy to use.
We have a four-host VMware environment with over one hundred and forty virtual servers that runs everything on our network except for backups and video storage. We are using Dell R730xd servers filled with a combination of hard drives and SSDs, as well as some PCIe storage for high-performance VMs.
The licensing is pretty simple, and the costs are straightforward. Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs.
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The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective.
If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise.
The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint.
The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect.
I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most.
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.
I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN.
The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive.
its a good option compared with other vendors as licence is perpetual and wont charge every three years as HPE.
Evaluate your solutions. This is a great solution for those user Hyper-V and ready to hyper-converge.
Make sure that you understand what all of the pieces do and don't make the assumption that you can drop support once setup is complete.
Something to keep in mind is that you are not allowed to install security and bug fixes without active support agreement.
The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment.
This is a very good solution for small businesses.
The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions.
The cost of deployment is minimal, almost a product out of the box. The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important.
There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost.
The price is more affordable than other solutions. The product is excellent in value and benefit.
Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective.
This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy.
The basic setup is very easy and the cost is reasonable for support.
I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it. If you like it then you will definitely like the more advanced, full paid version.
Setup is simple, so it's cheap. Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing.
The licensing is pretty simple, and the costs are straightforward. Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs.
StarWind is best price/performance for SMB.
My advice is to use all the features of the service, including software updates and technical support.
The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available. Use the trial version before buying. Contact StarWind support in case of questions or issues. The support is very good.
Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth.
No idea.
This solution has a great price for the functionality.
It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable.
Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward.
I was so impressed by what I saw, because at first, you set it up for free. I set it up for free to see how it worked, because I was losing nothing but time. After I set it up, and everything worked, I was like, "Okay, I don't need anything else for this. Let's get the licensing and go." The pricing is more than reasonable. The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight. However, that is just one drive size upwards in an array. You are first going from two terabyte drives to four terabyte drives, then you will soon be going to eight terabyte drives and upwards, for SSDs which are coming out. Therefore, it is weird that they have the middle tier in there, their pro tier. Then, they have their enterprise, which is unlimited. I can see their licensing better structured if their lower tier either had less drive space or the middle tier had more, by maybe a factor of four rather than doubling it. From a sales and marketing point of view, the difference between going from pro to unlimited is unclear. It seems like, "Why not just go unlimited? Why even have the middle tier there?"
The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go.
For pricing, you have two things that come into it: * The cost of the hardware. * The software licensing pricing. When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at. This wasn't our only criteria, as you don't want to buy the cheapest thing, then find out you have a problem. Also, StarWind isn't the cheapest solution out there, but it is certainly cost-effective relative to the major players. I haven't seen any difference in quality overall. StarWind works as well as any of the major players would have for us. The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity. Going forward, we will probably pay for a license upgrade, then we can add more capacity. We just haven't done it yet.
The pricing is fine for the work that it does. I have had no issues. When we bought it three to four years ago for what we needed, it was literally cheaper than the alternative which was ten times the amount and took up physical space. The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running.
I have not seen any other storage solution that delivers the features that StarWind does for anywhere near the price. Licensing and support costs are very simple and straightforward.
The version for vSphere is very cheap, and anyone interested should buy a three-node version for the test environment.
Be very clear in what you want. I was misquoted what I needed and ended up having to go back to the boss two times. And was running crippled while doing that. It was not pretty. Make sure they know what you have and what you want. Especially sizes. --This really only applies if you do the FREE method first.
We are happy with the price.
The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great.
StarWind was the least expensive option I considered. Their maintenance cost is reasonable.
As a nonprofit with a limited budget, we are very satisfied with the licensing model provided by StarWind. The initial setup was quick and mostly effortless. Additionally, the support has been superb on the few occasions we've had to reach out to them.
Make sure that you understand what all of the pieces do and don't make the assumption that you can drop support once setup is complete.