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
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March 21, 2024
It's a Winner!! for us
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We have been using a StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) on two production locations with a Hyper-V Cluster for almost 7 years now in my current company but have 10 year of experience with the product. It has given us very good performance and we haven't had any issue with it in the past years. StarWind support is excellent, very fast and has very good knowledge of the StarWind and Hyper-V Cluster software. What we like best about it is that it's the only true two-node Hyper-V cluster solution that's available. On both production locations, we have a 2-node setup over 2 different server rooms. Our main goal was that we want to have all VM servers available on one Cluster host, in case of a disaster in one of our server rooms. Microsoft SSD (Storage Space Direct) always needs a 3rd witness (SMB or Cloud) but in ours a two-node solution this is not ideal. Direct connected fiber connections between the nodes makes everything fast and makes the chance of a Cluster split-brain fault less likely.
- True two node Hyper-V cluster solution.
- Performance.
- StarWind support will install and configure the software and also update it for you.
- Simplicity.
- none yet
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We needed a fault-tolerant, easy to use and simple solution to provide storage to a 2-node high availability cluster without having to invest in expensive and external NAS or SAN storage. Enter StarWind Virtual SAN which provided exactly that, by using the local disk to provide a safe solution to store our files. We can now rely on a cheap, easy to use and manage solution instead of having to invest in clunky external storage.
- High-availability storage using local disk
- Easy-of-use setup and managing of the storage
- Very cost effective compared to alternatives
- Better and updated documentation on how the CLI works
- A GUI update would be nice, especially how to navigate the GUI
- Initial deployment guides for the free version are lacking
May 02, 2023
Enterprise grade software for SMB pricing.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
As a seasoned MSP leader, I recognize the significance of dependable and high-speed shared storage for our VMware vSphere Essentials setup, particularly for implementing vMotion and High Availability capabilities. After evaluating the exorbitant costs of external storage alternatives, we decided to leverage a vSAN solution to minimize expenses. Our setup comprises a 3-server VMware vSphere Essentials Plus solution equipped with 8 x SSDs and no HDDs for on-server storage. The solution connects to a 1GB network for production, but we also have 10GB network connections that allow for direct connectivity between servers, further enhancing performance. To ensure seamless integration and centralized management of our resources, we chose StarWind's vSAN solution implemented as a hyper-converged solution, enabling all components to run on the VMware vSphere solution.
- Ease of Use
- Product Support
- Minimal Maintenance
- Reliability
- Deduplication
February 28, 2023
StarWind Virtual SAN - A Virtual Storage Area Network
StarWind Virtual SAN provides a flexible storage solution that can be easily scaled up or down as per the changing needs of an organization. The software is straightforward to install and configure, and it provides excellent performance with low latency. It can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud, allowing organizations to choose the deployment option that best suits their needs. The product also supports a variety of hypervisors, including VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM. StarWind Virtual SAN is a reliable, cost-effective, and easy-to-use software-defined storage solution that provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments. The product is highly flexible and provides excellent performance and customer support from StarWind Software Inc. StarWind Virtual SAN is a solid software-defined storage solution that offers high availability and redundancy at a lower cost compared to traditional hardware-based solutions. Its simplicity and flexibility make it an attractive option for organizations looking to deploy a highly available storage environment.
- Cost-effective: It eliminates the need for expensive storage hardware and provides an affordable software-defined storage solution.
- Simplified Management: It provides a simple and intuitive interface to manage storage infrastructure.
- Flexibility: It allows organizations to use commodity hardware, reducing the dependency on proprietary hardware.
- High Availability: It ensures that data and applications are always available, reducing downtime and increasing productivity.
- It is designed to create a highly available and fault-tolerant virtual storage environment.
- Limited Integrations: It lacks integrations with some third-party applications, which can limit its use cases.
- Complexity: The installation and configuration process can be complex, requiring expertise in storage infrastructure.
November 07, 2022
StarWind Virtual SAN review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I am currently running servers with hosted applications for my business, and I had a problem having them online all the time because of server maintenance and updates that's why I started using a StarWind Virtual SAN to avoid buying a Hardware SAN and use my existing servers only. The software improved my productivity by allowing me to have a virtualisation high availability and fault tolerance. I am planning to invest in NVME disks which the software provides perfect integration with to speed up the systems and to get cache capabilities.
- Ease of management: The management was very easy, and I was able to find all that I needed in the software dashboard
- ISCSI: The connection using software made it easy to me to connect my servers without an extra investment in hardware SAN
- For now I see all application features fits my requirements
We use StarWind vSAN as a High Availability, redundant and fail-safe solution! Previously we had multiple servers running multiple VM's, but if a server went down, restarted, failed to boot after a restart, we were left with mulitple servers offline and end users putting in tickets! With StarWind vSAN, we now have a three node cluster giving us fault tolerance, the ability to move machines around and have shared storage but without the single failure point of a SAN.
- Fantastic Customer Support!
- Stable product at a affordable price (with great support!)
- Simple licensing model
- Engineer led PoC Install and configuration.
- Needs more comprehensive documentation and FAQ's
- Lack of Instructional video's
June 27, 2022
StarWind VSAN made me a beliver
We have a 2-node hyper-converged Starwind VSAN. It runs a couple of Hyper-V hosts which house our electronic medical record system. As a hospital, we need to ensure as much uptime as possible. This system allows this to happen. We can move virtual machines from one host to another while we perform maintenance.
- Simple configuration - between the community, KB articles, and support, this system is very easy to set up and get running.
- Support - their technical support goes above and beyond, even helping with non-StarWinds issues
- The system runs really well and I have little to ask of it. Perhaps some additional video training; how-to's that are more recently done would be helpful.
June 13, 2022
StarWind recommended for vSphere 6.7 integration
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Physical to virtual environment migration, requiring a VSAN storage for data center we had an old BLC 460 gen 6 blades with physical storage attached, so basically if we had any issues with the hardware or operating system the downtime for production would be for hours, so we created a virtual data center with VMware vSphere and added 3 20TB storage on each host then created 3-node StarWind scenario being shared on all 3 hosts, and creating virtual machines on 3 hosts and now running on StarWind storage.
- The three-node hyperconverged scenario for our data center works as fault tolerance and less worries on data loss.
- The management console over Windows, installing together with the PowerShell library, you can put images on maintenance mode from the management console which saves you a lot of time on syncing.
- With the PowerShell library I created a batch file for putting images on maintenance mode when our UPS reaches 10% battery capacity in case of a blackout and this lets you bring all host backup and StarWind storage not requiring sync.
- An easy migration to ZFS system that is being presented on a new version of StarWind, migrations look complicated as this restructures the whole architecture on the raid level, but could be a good option just by having it and letting the user decide this new feature migration, as based on our experience with ZFS systems they work pretty fast and secure.
- Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device.
- SMTP makes management services to crash and restart if SMTP server not reachable
October 08, 2021
Excellent Solution
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
It is used in our organization for DR and HA for the VMWare Hosts. We use the VSAN feature in StarWind for the data availability across our networks.
- High availability.
- Performance.
- Gain 100% uptime and full fault tolerance.
- Cost-efficiency.
- Witness server improvement required.
- TTL value below 5ms very tough.
- Linux learning.
April 25, 2021
StarWind vSAN in K-12 Education
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are running Dell PowerEdge Series as Hyper-V hosts with StarWind providing a virtual SAN infrastructure to allow for CSVs and data replication between the hosts without having to add dedicated storage hardware. This serves to allow us to have a fault tolerance of suffering not just a drive loss (RAID Configurations on each server allow for that) but it also allows for the loss of an entire server since we are running N+1. The servers are directly connected to one another using 10gb NICs allowing for fast connectivity and support for direct wiring allowed us to not have to invest in a dedicated 10gb SAN switch either.
- Great Tech Support/Implementation Team
- Easy to Use Management GUI
- Lightweight but Powerful Software Performance
- Automated Alerts
April 19, 2020
Great solution for SMB
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We needed to deploy the new infrastructure in the new data center as soon as possible. As reliable, fault-tolerant storage, we used the StarWind solution with two old servers and a raid array on SSD drives. Storage is used for a VMWare cluster for virtual machines that have MS SQL servers installed.
- Easy installation.
- Excellent performance.
- Low price compared to hardware storage.
- Possibility to use different equipment.
- The storage size limit of 4TB is less than I would like.
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.
December 05, 2019
Great product at a great price point
It is being used by the entire organization, and resolves my pre-requisites of high availability and failover.
- High Availability
- Failover
- Replication
- Bugs with hardware (Broadcom NICs and Jumboframes)
- Could use more video tutorials
- Describe additional support options
October 14, 2019
StarWind Virtual SAN is a good choice!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
StarWind Virtual SAN is used in our organization on servers for high availability. Hyper-V-based virtual machines that host database management servers access fault-tolerant storage. This allows us to give uninterrupted work of our employees with databases even while servicing one of the servers.
- Fault-tolerant and high-performance storage.
- Servers of one cluster can be located at a distance from each other.
- It works even on the oldest servers and requires nothing but two network cards.
- For me, management through poweshell is not very clear, and there is very little documentation on this issue.
- There is no multilanguage, but technical support speaks my native language perfectly.
September 12, 2019
StarWind Virtual SAN is flexible and affordable when creating cluster environments
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
StarWind VSAN software allows us to build a fairly inexpensive two-node cluster, and provide a fault-tolerant solution to our users. The cluster supports the entire organization, which operates on a 24/7 365 days basis. With a limited budget for IT, we were able to provide a solution utilizing local storage on the cluster nodes instead of an external SAN.
- Being able to work with any storage configuration on the nodes.
- It keeps everything in perfect sync.
- It integrates well with the Microsoft Hyper-V and Cluster technologies.
- We haven't come across any problems so far.
July 21, 2019
Use StarWind Virtual SAN!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our company's storage infrastructure is built upon StarWind Virtual SAN. All consumers of big pieces of data (virtualization hosts, database management servers, and just file servers) are connected to storage directly through the iSCSI protocol. Most consumers are using high-availability targets.
StarWind storage clusters allow us to deploy and to evolve high-availability storage infrastructure while keeping costs low.
- At the beginning we had DAS. With StarWind, we transformed two ordinary servers to fault-tolerance storage. We got higher-level storage quality just after buying a software solution.
- StarWind's management console is simple. One page of instruction is enough to put a new worker in the picture.
- We placed storage clusters' nodes in different rooms. So local incidents will have local impact only.
- We upgrade our storage by ordinary disks, RAID-controllers, 10G network cards and disk shelves with low price. We have no hardware vendor dependency.
- We can maintain nodes of storage clusters without the necessity of stopping our services or difficult migration of these services to another storage.
- Node's stopping is needed to change cache size or to enable/disable it.