Oracle VM VirtualBox vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Oracle VM VirtualBox
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Open source, cross-platform, virtualization software that enables developers to deliver code faster by running multiple operating systems on a single device, used to deploy applications on-premises and to the cloud. Oracle VM VIrtualBox is Oracle's cross-platform virtualization offering, acquired with Sun Microsystems in early 2010. The software was originally developed by Innotek GmbH.N/A
StarWind Virtual SAN
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
StarWind Virtual SAN is software-defined storage for efficient storage and backup.N/A
Pricing
Oracle VM VirtualBoxStarWind Virtual SAN
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Oracle VM VirtualBoxStarWind Virtual SAN
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Oracle VM VirtualBoxStarWind Virtual SAN
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Oracle VM VirtualBoxStarWind Virtual SAN
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Oracle VM VirtualBox
7.3
49 Ratings
13% below category average
StarWind Virtual SAN
-
Ratings
Virtual machine automated provisioning7.836 Ratings00 Ratings
Management console7.244 Ratings00 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup8.237 Ratings00 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration6.932 Ratings00 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security6.628 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Oracle VM VirtualBoxStarWind Virtual SAN
Small Businesses
Proxmox VE
Proxmox VE
Score 9.3 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
IBM Spectrum Scale
IBM Spectrum Scale
Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Oracle VM VirtualBoxStarWind Virtual SAN
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(52 ratings)
9.3
(138 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
8.5
(14 ratings)
Usability
9.9
(6 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.6
(120 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.8
(8 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Oracle VM VirtualBoxStarWind Virtual SAN
Likelihood to Recommend
Oracle
It is best suited when you want to have different operating systems on your laptop or desktop. You can easily switch between operating systems without the need to uninstall one. In another scenario, if you expect some application to damage your device, it would be best to run the application on the VM such that the damage can only be done to the virtual machine. It is less appropriate when time synchronization is very important. At times the VMs run their own times differently from the host time and this may cause some losses if what you doing is critical. Another important thing to take note of is the licensing of the application you want to run your VM. Some licenses do not allow the applications to be run on virtual servers so it is not appropriate to use the VM at this time.
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StarWind
For companies that have 4-5 or more servers, StarWind is a great solution to provide high availability for a low price. It can scale up very nicely for larger implementations to more like 15-20 servers with ease. Although we haven't used it for even larger environments, it's doable. What its not appropriate are really small locations that have 1-2 servers. Unfortunately no one seems to have a good HCC solution in this space.
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Pros
Oracle
  • It is simple to install - there is no advanced knowledge required to begin building virtual computers
  • It is easy to use - adding new virtual machines is simple with wizard-based deployment
  • It enables easy portability - moving virtual machines from one host to another is straight-forward and simple
  • It is free
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StarWind
  • the StarWind Virtual SAN allows us to use Starwind Management Console to confirm health of the sync
  • The High Available nature of the deployment means we can fail over VMs without end users noticing any downtime
  • Their support is proactive alerting when firmware updates are needed (including iDRAC firmware) or when there are any warnings in the event logs, and schedule a time to remediate the issue with you.
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Cons
Oracle
  • I have had issues in the past when it has come to resizing VM disk storage. The issue is entirely detailed here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9103 -- the problem was caused because of having existing snapshots (which error message output was not detailing). I haven't had to deal with the issue due to my dynamic disk sizes not being small from the start anymore (this is mostly an issue for my Windows VMs where the base disk may need significant size for the OS). It looks like, for a resize, that a merge of all snapshots has to occur first -- one user on that list details a workaround to maintain snapshots by cloning the VM. (Note: 5.2 was just released a few weeks ago, and looks like it should prevent the problem happening in the future by properly informing users that it isn't possible with snapshots).
  • Certain scenarios, like resizing disks, required dropping into a terminal as there were no options to previously do so via the GUI. According to some recent posts, I've seen that v5.2 has added disk management stuff like that to the GUI (or will be adding it). I'm comfortable with dropping into the terminal, but in a teaching scenario or when evaluating the learnability of the tools, it complicates things.
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StarWind
  • Complexity: StarWind Virtual SAN can be complex to set up and manage, especially for organizations with limited IT resources
  • Limited protocol support: StarWind Virtual SAN supports a limited number of protocols, primarily iSCSI and SMB3
  • Limited scalability for storage-only deployments: In storage-only deployments, StarWind Virtual SAN has a limit of 32 nodes per cluster
  • Lack of reporting and analytics: StarWind Virtual SAN has limited reporting and analytics capabilities, which can make it difficult to monitor and troubleshoot performance issues
  • Limited backup and recovery options: While StarWind Virtual SAN provides some basic backup and recovery options, it lacks advanced features such as snapshot management, backup scheduling, and offsite replication
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Likelihood to Renew
Oracle
I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used
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StarWind
StarWind Virtual SAN is a great solution and is now an integral part of our network of servers. The product is superb and the support has been amazing. It's perfect for our organisation and we won't be looking to come away from it any time soon!
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Usability
Oracle
Easy and quick to use. Runs at sufficient speed even with 5/6 VMs running, and can handle a bridged network with ease. Easy to disassociate from the host to ensure the environment built within VB is quarantined should anything happen, meaning no risk to physical hardware. Quick to pick up. Quick to add new machines. Cloning feature very quick and comprehensive. I've never had a VM crash or freeze.
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StarWind
Overall I like the usability of StarWind Virtual SAN because it is a "Set-up and forget" software. Once you correctly have set up the parameters, StarWind Virtual SAN pretty much rolls by itself. The biggest fact that one needs to keep in mind, though, is that the licensing for StarWind Management Console needs to be purchased separately, and while managing StarWind Virtual SAN through the paid Management Console is really easy and is well documented, going the free or - in other words - PowerShell Template route can be taxing if you are not that deep into the topic. You need to be especially careful with it if you switch from paid to free because using the templates incorrectly can cause issues.
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Reliability and Availability
Oracle
Dependency on the Host OS means it is as reliable as it is possible to be. Application errors are beyond the purview of the application.
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StarWind
Never went out of availability with StarWind.
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Performance
Oracle
No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
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StarWind
It improves the overall performance.
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Support Rating
Oracle
Oracle have a very fast response rate and a strong user community. One can geet help from many sources if they choose to research for themselves.
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StarWind
Their support team is dedicated to providing top-notch customer service and is always available to help with any questions or issues that may arise. Their expertise and responsiveness have proven invaluable in ensuring the smooth operation of our virtualized environment. With such excellent support, we feel confident in our ability to utilize this product to its fullest potential, and we highly recommend it to others.
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Implementation Rating
Oracle
We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.
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StarWind
Overall the setup was easy, we did require some help from the technical support team but other than that, we followed all of StarWinds prerequisites and everything else just fell nicely into place with hardly any downtime. The downtime was only due to moving VMs from our previous cluster over to the new StarWind storage cluster.
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Alternatives Considered
Oracle
VirutalBox is very similar to using Vmware with the slight difference in appearance and what might be considered a less polished look. However, what it lacks in polish and looks it makes up for in functionality, easy of use and the wide range of operating systems and features it supports without the need of buying the full professional edition
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StarWind
We have found the solution surprisingly simple to use. The management
console allows us to monitor the solution and we have configured email
alerts to alert us about critical issues. These alerts have been proven
to work in an actual failure scenario, for example, when we had a memory
issue with one of our servers that caused the entire server to crash.
The management console also allows us to monitor the solution
performance and provides us with access to system logs.
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Scalability
Oracle
The only problem I have found is that the deployment is dependent and intrinsically linked to the Host OS. This is different from bare metal solutions which remove that dependency on a Host OS. The latter is more reliable and removes a layer of potential failure.
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StarWind
Is is future proof for us.
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Return on Investment
Oracle
  • For personal use, there is no monetary investment, I am running 5 CentOS servers flawlessly in my home lab.
  • Saves a ton of money in an enterprise environment by not having to purchase physical test servers. (Cost of Enterprise product is way lower vs Cost of standing up physical servers and/or cloud servers)
  • Makes virtualization very easy and friendly for everyone for test instances.
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StarWind
  • It eliminates the need for expensive storage hardware and provides an affordable software-defined storage solution.
  • It allows organizations to use commodity hardware, reducing the dependency on proprietary hardware.
  • It ensures that data and applications are always available, reducing downtime and increasing productivity.
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ScreenShots

StarWind Virtual SAN Screenshots

Screenshot of StarWind Management ConsoleScreenshot of StarWind Management ConsoleScreenshot of StarWind Virtual SANScreenshot of StarWind Virtual SAN