StarWind Virtual SAN - Easy, Resilient, and Cost Effective
We have StarWind Virtual SAN deployed on a 2-node cluster to achieve the need for shared storage for our virtualization project. …
Overview
What is StarWind Virtual SAN?
StarWind Virtual SAN is software-defined storage for efficient storage and backup.
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Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is StarWind Virtual SAN?
StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) is presented by the vendor as a lightweight software-defined storage (SDS) for Enterprise ROBO, SMB & Edge that removes the need for physical storage. The solution is compatible with any hypervisor of choice, and is hardware-agnostic. The vendor invites users to integrate it into an existing infrastructure with minimum requirements, and enjoy constant uptime in a true 2-node scenario.
StarWind VSAN has no strict hardware compatibility lists (HCLs) and is licensed per node. A license unlocks access to all features upon purchase and differs only by capacity volume. The vendors promises customers get the chance to reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO) while receiving 99.9999% uptime. StarWind also helps with configuration, deployment, and migration.
StarWind Virtual SAN:
- provides 90% of raw performance
- squeezes 100% IOPS out of existing hardware
- works on the iSCSI layer
- “speaks” most uplink protocols, including NVMe-oF
- works on top of Hardware or Software RAID (MDADM, ZFS)
- does 2- or 3-way synchronous replication, and more.
The true 2-node solution is enabled through HeartBeat (no witness required). Thanks to “mirroring” of internal disks and flash between hypervisor servers, customers receive fault-tolerant storage. It’s scalable up and out, allowing users to introduce infrastructure changes without downtime or additional licensing costs.
StarWind Virtual SAN makes enterprise-level virtual shared storage accessible.
StarWind Virtual SAN Screenshots
StarWind Virtual SAN Video
StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN)
StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors
- VMware vSAN
- StorMagic SvSAN
- Microsoft S2D
StarWind Virtual SAN Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux |
| Mobile Application | No |
StarWind Virtual SAN Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
StarWind Virtual SAN is software-defined storage for efficient storage and backup.
VMware vSAN and StorMagic SvSAN are common alternatives for StarWind Virtual SAN.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.6.
The most common users of StarWind Virtual SAN are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings
(143)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
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December 03, 2022
Starwind Virtual SAN: Budget friendly full scale SAN
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We chose starwind as a budget friendly solution to expand our existing storage infrastructure. We quickly learned how great starwind is, not only the product itself but support is phenomenal. The product was chosen as our underlying storage solution for our Hyper-V cluster. This product allowed us to repurpose existing hardware to create a full scale SAN.
- high scalability - can add more than two storage nodes
- low cost solution
- excellent support, agents are always able to answer any questions via phone, e-mail or remote support session.
- I'd like to see a web based GUI for management of the application.
- Setup for additional storage (how to expand storage) isn't quite straightforward.
- More instructional videos from the vendor would be nice.
November 30, 2022
StarWind Virtual SAN - SAN on a budget!
I learned about StarWind Virtual SAN while searching for a solution to use at my home lab, and as I tested the product and got to know better how it works, I was amazed and use it until this day at my home lab. A few years back at work, I found myself a need to address a lack of HA for a few VMs at our remote sites, StarWind Virtual SAN to the rescue! Since I had some experience with it, I've deployed on similar hardware, run-it for a few months of testing (as it was a different purpose from my home lab), and after extensive testing, it was ready to deploy. I've never had any problems and 0 downtime for years. One of my main concerns was network usage for replication since at work is way more intensive. Testing showed that it did not matter, and I never had any issues with that, either. Overall it is a great solution, the support team is amazing and it does deserve this recommendation.
- Easy and simple to manage, the powershell scripts are handy
- Sync between nodes are a breeze on the network
- Stability is fantastic
- Support staff are very knowledgeable
- Documentation can be better ( is not bad, is just that has room to improve )
- Security is always an area to improve, even if I have never had any problem with this
- Pricing can always be better, too, there is a free option, but maybe it will get more customers if the price is better
We switched from a standalone Windows Server to a more reliable and redundant cluster. The challenge we had was to find a server solution that is scalable but cost-effective at the same time, so we decided to implement a Hyperconverged Solution.
Challenges:
The scope is to synchronize a 70TB storage with an additional SSD partition, which runs several critical VM instances, such as HA-Databases, Network Authentication, and ADFS. Additionally, we run a Fileserver on Hyper-V. Considering all those requirements, the storage needs to be reliably fast on broadband of workloads (small to big files)
Challenges:
- Reliable sync in a 2-node cluster, e.g., avoid split brain
- Low latency and lightweight solution for storage
- Support as well as community size and up-to-date documentation
The scope is to synchronize a 70TB storage with an additional SSD partition, which runs several critical VM instances, such as HA-Databases, Network Authentication, and ADFS. Additionally, we run a Fileserver on Hyper-V. Considering all those requirements, the storage needs to be reliably fast on broadband of workloads (small to big files)
- StarWind Virtual SAN helps in reliably synchronizing in a 2-node cluster via a reliable heartbeat (384 days uptime so far)
- Ample boost is provided through L1 (RAM) and L2 (SSD) Cache Partition with industry leading bandwidth
- Fantastic Forum Support and even better mail support, as well as up-to-date documentation helped us in setting up StarWind Virtual SAN within 48 hours and bringing it online within 3 days after setup and initial full syncronization
- Avoiding a full sync through its fast sync technology: When running maintenance on the cluster, StarWind Virtual SAN reliably synchronizes data in the background when e.g. restarting the service
- Full utilization of our bandwidth: We use 2x 25GBit for Sync Interface and 2x 10GBit for end user interface and reach a file transfer performance of over 750MB/s through a Windows Fileserver VM
- While StarWinds Documentation is well maintained and up to date, we wished that it was clearer in providing a clearer guideline in setting StarWind Virtual SAN up with a free license of the Management Console, resulting in a setup with the provided PowerShell templates.
September 10, 2022
Good redundant storage system without breaking the bank
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Before we used a cluster of two windows servers with shared storage system on a single SAN. Our theme was working with clustered SQL server with database mirroring. Every part of the system was redundant except for SAN. It was almost satisfying. Every cluster server system we know needs a shared storage system. Cluster could be fully redundant, but this redundancy is worth nothing without a redundant storage system. We had a single SAN system. As a single, SAN was not redundant. But we needed a redundant storage system. We always were afraid that once upon a time our SAN will stop working. We, of course, had backups, but it was not enough. What we needed was a system with no data loss in case of an issue and with no interruption (or only several seconds of interruption) in data processing. We were looking for a relatively simple and not very expensive solution. Now we have a redundant storage system, so our cluster system is fully redundant. We now have two clusters of two nodes Windows Hyper-V servers with StarWind V-san working as hosts.
- Easy implementation
- Very good support
- I had no problems with understanding how the system worked. It was important to me.
- The system has the possibility to send an e-mail message about issues, but only within the internal company mail system. I would like to have e-mail messages also when I'm away.
April 04, 2022
Great Hyperconverged Solution for SMB
As an IT consulting company, we needed to find a replacement for the HP StoreVirtual VSA product for 2-node hyper-converged solutions. After demos and deployments of several products like HPE's StorMagic (which is their direct replacement product) and other 3rd party vSAN software like Open-E, one of our engineers deployed Starwind Virtual SAN at a client. He immediately reached out to me and several other engineers about the fantastic function and support of the product, and that StarWind Virtual SAN should be our go-to for future deployments. After seeing the product and experiencing the top-notch support we agreed that this will be the product of our solution to HP StoreVirtual moving forward.
- Fantastic support before, during, and after deployments
- Ease of deployment
- Hardware agnostic
- More deployments with web UI management consoles instead of the downloaded programs.
- Standardized pricing according to the storage volume deployed.
- There really isn't anything else, it's a great product!
April 19, 2021
Flexible and practical VSAN solution.
StarWind VSAN allows us to build high availability and real-time replication (even between 2 servers) in our small IT department. It offers multiple scaling and replication capabilities and includes health and performance monitoring tools. For this reason, we can build highly available services for our company, which are currently essential for the activities of each company. Such a model of implementation allows us to maintain the company's production continuity and to maintain constant access to data processed by the company.
- High availability and realtime replication between two servers.
- Stable software.
- Perfect support.
- Only the price, but this isn't a deal breaker.
July 01, 2020
StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere
StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere provides redundant and highly available storage for our VMware vSphere environment. We have two Supermicro 2029BT-DNC0R servers with VMware ESXi 6.7 and one StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere virtual machine on each. Local SSD-s are directly attached to StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere virtual machine and software RAID is used to make storage from them. For StarWind synchronization we are using Mellanox ConnectX-4 adapters
and directly attached cable between nodes.
- Reduce complexity.
- More cost efficient.
- No vendor locked-in hardware restriction.
- iSIR not only experimental.
- More detailed reports via e-mail.
- Security and bug fixes without active support agreement.
December 31, 2019
StarWind SAN is a excellent software SAN solution that is easy to use and very reliable.
We have set up a dual StarWind SAN with a fault-tolerant volume for our critical virtual servers in addition to some non fault-tolerant volumes for less critical virtual servers in both our corporate HQ and one of our large divisions. The corporate site is using HyperV and the other division using VMWare ESX. Between the two sites, we have 15+ physical servers with over 150 VMs running. Our corporate site used Dell servers w/SAS drives for the 2 StarWind nodes, and the division site built 2 Whitebox type servers using NAS specific SATA drives. Both solutions have been outstanding.
- StarWind is an excellent software-based SAN solution that is easy to set up and manage.
- Fault tolerant volumes provide peace of mind and solves downtime due to storage.
- The only improvement I would like to see in StarWind is centralized management for UPS Battery backup shutdown in the event of a power loss.
StarWind provides an easy and economical way to create a fault tolerate storage volume for virtual machines.
July 24, 2019
StarWind Virtual SAN, more storage for less money.
StarWind Virtual SAN is being used as our SAN in a VMware cluster with six nodes. Production systems are using StarWind for storage. Our StarWind san has three nodes spread across sites to mitigate outages. All users are dependent on the SAN for critical systems like e-mail, database, and network storage.
- Support is very good. Everyone is responsive and knowledgeable.
- Being a virtual SAN, StarWind has the ability to drop nodes or sites in our case, and there is no downtime.
- The costs are very reasonable.
- The new Linux appliance does not have all the features that the Windows version does.
- Monitoring with products like Nagios requires extra setup, and no plugins were available from the vendor.