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StarWind Virtual SAN

Score9.8 out of 10

165 Reviews and Ratings

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What is StarWind Virtual SAN?

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

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Screenshot of StarWind Management Console
Screenshot of StarWind Management Console
Screenshot of StarWind Virtual SAN
Screenshot of StarWind Virtual SAN

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Screenshot of StarWind Management Console

Most Frequent Users

Top 1 industries by verified-review volume.
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#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”

— IT Manager, Wyatt Early Harris WHeeler LLP (11-50 employees)
Verified Review

StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

What users are saying about StarWind Virtual SAN.
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Very robust and cost-effective storage solution.

Dan Vrabie
VP, Finance and IT in Finance and Accounting at NextSource Materials (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using on-prem servers for identity management, Enterprise Resource Planning, and file storage due to our remote location in Madagascar. StarWind provides us with a cost-effective, robust storage infrastructure solution by using existing hardware and software, avoiding the purchase of dedicated hardware solutions, which would be much more difficult to deploy and maintain and more expensive.

Pros

  • StarWind simplifies the storage management for on-prem servers.
  • StarWind is very cost-effective and easy to maintain, compared with equivalent software and hardware solutions.
  • StarWind provides high availability and reliability.

Cons

  • StarWind is difficult to deploy without their dedicated support. Luckily, this support is very good.
  • StarWind has certain technical limitations as it shares resources with our existing servers.

Return on Investment

  • Positive cost effectiveness.
  • Positive availability and reliability.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Omnissa Dynamic Environment Manager

Straightforward VSAN that performs at a high level.

Larry Bates
IT Administrator in Information Technology at Grand + Benedicts (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize StarWind's VSAN to enable a Hyper-V cluster with 2 physical servers with direct-attached storage. This product allowed us to use existing infrastructure to get full-featured SAN capabilities without the expense of purchasing a dedicated SAN hardware appliance. The product is easy to install and configure, and is backed by a very good support team.

Pros

  • Shared storage access from direct attached storage.
  • Ease of setup and configuration.
  • Monitoring and Maintenance is straightforward.

Cons

  • Scalability is limited to 3 node clusters.
  • Logging is tied to local server logs.
  • Would be nice if the software remembered all cluster nodes when starting up.

Return on Investment

  • Saved us the expense of having to purchase a dedicated SAN.
  • No need to purchase fiber network.
  • ROI is great as we were up and running quickly with Hyper-V.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure

Other Software Used

Azure Files, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), Microsoft 365

For reliable storage and a calm mind

Incentivized
Vincent FREMY
RSI in Engineering at Avize Viti Campus (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In order to replace our aging EMC storage array, our structure has implemented a StarWind Virtual SAN virtual HA storage.
Managing storage and performance via the dashboard makes it easy for storage administrators.
The reliability of the Linux OS makes this solution very stable and very efficient in its response times.Administration is very simplified and makes this task easier for administrators.
The "StarWind Management Console" is very affordable by all and allows an even easier management than the web version.


Pros

  • Adding a node is very simple
  • Data reconstruction between nodes is very efficient
  • Storage response times are very fast

Cons

  • A mobile app for alerts

Return on Investment

  • The response times for our storage are increased
  • The serenity due to reliability made the teams responsible for storage peaceful.
  • Our VMWare virtual machines are experiencing increased response times.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft 365

Other Software Used

Microsoft Azure

StarWind - True SAN Replacement

Incentivized
Tyler LeJeuneView profile
Manager of Systems Administration in Information Technology at Monster Digital (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

StarWind has been such a huge win for our company. Using this software allowed us to create a two node cluster, without the need for any additional storage. We were able to create a hyperconverged cluster, with full failover capabilities, using only two servers. We now have highly available storage between the two, and VM's can live migrate freely between them. The real value comes with the Professional Support they offer. Within minutes of a node going offline, their Support reaches out to make sure everything is planned, and to offer assistance in getting the cluster back up and running. I cannot recommend StarWind enough. If you are looking for real 24/7 support, or if you have any limitations around storage, StarWind is an easy win for you and your company.

Pros

  • Professional Support
  • Hyperconverged Infrastructure
  • vSAN GUI
  • Documentation

Cons

  • Using the CLI to set up LUNs can be complicated
  • Unguided setup is not recommended for beginners

Return on Investment

  • Increased visibility on outages from StarWind Support
  • Allows the company to avoid purchasing and upkeeping SAN equipment
  • Gives us the ability to keep all virtual machines in highly available failover, with 24/7 uptime
  • The ability to migrate virtual machines from one node to the second allows us to patch mission critical systems without downtime

Usability

StarWind Virtual SAN is Awesome

Incentivized
Dylan Friesen
Systems Administrator in Information Technology at DeVry Greenhouses (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use StarWind Virtual SAN in my clustered Hyper-V infrastructure with paired cluster nodes and replicated VM storage. The VMs are replicated between clusters and rebuilt by re-enabling replication from one cluster to the other. Essentially, StarWind Virtual SAN is the storage/HA layer that keeps VM storage available across cluster nodes and supports failover and recovery.

Pros

  • It supports clean, repeatable VM replication between cluster environments
  • It provides clustered storage that fits real Hyper-V operations, not just a theoretical HA design
  • It works especially well in my paired cluster-node design
  • fits neatly into my full VM lifecycle: provisioning, protection, backup, and monitoring

Cons

  • Complicated to setup even with documentation.
  • Requires StarWind Virtual SAN support to confidently deploy
  • Disks can be stuck synchronizing for days if you are not careful.

Return on Investment

  • risk reduction
  • operational continuity

Usability

Other Software Used

Veeam Data Platform, Zabbix, Netbox

StarWind Virtual SAN Alternatives

Products similar to StarWind Virtual SAN that may also meet your needs.
View all StarWind Virtual SAN alternatives
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