StarWind Virtual SAN

Score9.9 out of 10

148 Reviews and Ratings

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What is StarWind Virtual SAN?

StarWind Virtual SAN is software-defined storage for efficient storage and backup.

Categories & Use Cases

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Media

Screenshot of StarWind Management Console

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Screenshot of StarWind Management Console

#1 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

“We paid less than half for hardware and software to implement StarWind Virtual SAN than our previous NetApp SAN 6 years before - and about 1/3 as much as it would have cost to buy the lowest cost replacement NetApp SAN”

Simion Vladimir View profile

Tehnical Pre-Sales in Sales at MoD (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Great product with great support at a fair price, This StarWind Virtual SAN solution is working great and is easy to deploy, with detailed documentation. I recommended this solution for a VDI deployment that needed shared storage also not costing an arm and a leg like Vmware VSAN.

Pros

Fair price
Great support
Detailed deployment documentation

Cons

More regional visibility

Return on Investment

Saved a lot of many comparing to the competition
Tiered licensed model means great predictibility and business use

Usability

Alternatives Considered

VMware vSAN

Other Software Used

VMware vSAN, Dell AppSync

Tom Esker View profile

IT Manager in Information Technology at Wyatt Early Harris WHeeler LLP (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

StarWind Virtual SAN is our production storage running on two VMWare ESXi hosts.

We are in the process of downsizing on site storage, moving as much as possible to the cloud - and there were not any affordable options available from NetApp a replace our out of production NetApp SAN. VMWare vSAN requires 3 host servers so it also was not a good fit. StarWind Virtual SAN has turned out to be a great soltuon that works just as well as what we had before but at a fraction of the cost.

Pros

High Availability
Good performance
It's reliable with little need to do much to maintain

Cons

Difficulty understanding some support people over the phone due to heavy accent
Datastores do not work after power outage with non-graceful shutdown - manual steps required to bring back online
Full sync required after power outage with non-graceful shutdown resulting in degraded performance until completed.

Return on Investment

We paid less than half for hardware and software to implement StarWind Virtual SAN than our previous NetApp SAN 6 years before - and about 1/3 as much as it would have cost to buy the lowest cost replacement NetApp SAN
The Software has already been purchased so we only need to buy hardware when it's time to refresh.
Buying onboard storage for servers is cheaper than buying a separate SAN

Usability

Alternatives Considered

NetApp FAS Storage Arrays, Dell Unity XT Unified Storage and Nfina Hybrid Cloud

Other Software Used

Mimecast Advanced Email Security, PDQ Deploy & Inventory, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows

Verified User

Director in Information Technology (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use StarWind Virtual SAN to provide a resilient platform to host business critical VM's. We came across StarWind Virtual SAN when evaluation Hyperconverged storage providers and it allowed us to repurpose our existing hardware which was great. We have had it running reliably for 3 years now and its a key piece of our infrastructure that just works.

Pros

Solid reliable platform
Fantastic support compared to other vendors
Cost effective compared to hardware SAN storage

Cons

I would like to see some more monitoring / usage info in the management console
The SAAS license renewal method is a bit clunky having to purchase from distributors and then manually apply licensing files.

Return on Investment

StarWind Virtual SAN allowed us to eliminate the need for expensive SAN hardware reducing IT expenditure by approximately 30%
By leveraging synchronous replication, we achieved near-zero downtime for critical workloads, aligning with our business continuity objectives.
StarWind Virtual SAN with their pro active support reduced complexity in storage management, freeing up IT resources and lowering operational costs.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

StorMagic SvSAN, Nutanix AHV, HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE MSA

Other Software Used

ESET PROTECT, Windows Server, HPE Aruba Networking Switches

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our organization used StarWind Virtual SAN to transform an older server into a feature-rich SAN based storage appliance for our organization. It was very easy to implement and we liked the fact that we could still run MS Windows Server along with the vSAN software. We were able to add storage and saved a lot of money vs the larger SAN manufacturers. It was a great fit and inexpensive for us to implement.

Pros

Cost Effective
Ease of Implementation
Feature Rich
Fast
Allows for easy storage expansion

Return on Investment

Saved money vs other solutions
Repurposed our hardware
Saved time doing research/training

Usability

Alternatives Considered

NetApp E-Series

Other Software Used

Cisco Endpoint Security Analytics, Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows, Macrium Reflect

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am using StarWind Virtual SAN for my small Proxmox Cluster. The StarWind Virtual SAN can be installed on commodity hardware or existing hardware. The StarWind Virtual SAN can be my shared storage cluster. So, my small Proxmox Cluster can do live migration or HA. Besides, StarWind Virtual SAN has replication ability for data protection

Pros

Replication
Easy installation
Easy configuration
Intuitive web-based

Cons

Please add NFS replication as well
Native application like install directly from apt or yum

Return on Investment

uses commodity server
Eliminates expensive SAN hardware for small cluster
High availability (HA)

Usability

Alternatives Considered

LINSTOR and TrueNAS

Other Software Used

LINSTOR, TrueNAS

StorMagic SvSAN

VMware vSAN

StarWind Virtual SAN

What is StarWind Virtual SAN?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Most Frequent Users

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Reviews

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

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