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.
Recent Reviews
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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).
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(143)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 139)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
- Resiliency using the built-in replication features
- Ease of management using the Web UI or Management Software on Windows
- Performance is very good.
- Support queries had to be submitted via email, it would be nice to have a phone option
- Some of the documents/articles on the website contained info that was slightly contradictory to what support had told us. I think the documents may have been a little outdated
March 27, 2024
Needed a SAN - StarWind fit the bill
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Replication of data between 2 server rooms
- 24/7 Support
- Remote help when needed.
- No real improvement required.
March 21, 2024
It's a Winner!! for us
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- 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
January 31, 2024
The right sized storage solution for our business
- High availability
- Storage Performance
- Direct hardware passthrough
- NMVe storage
- Virtual appliance password security
- Taking full advantage of NVMe storage performance
January 19, 2024
StarWind Virtual SAN, reliable and easy to use.
- Easy to use GUI
- Great support
- Active community
- Fast connectivity
- Sometimes connections are lost between the nodes
- Technical knowledge essential
- Updating must be done meticulously
November 30, 2023
StarWind Virtual SAN Review
- we can leverage our existing backup software without replacing it
- we can create multiple VTL libraries that allows simultaneous upload to cloud
- Much cheaper than physical tape library and has similar functionality
- You cannot see how long it takes for the cloud replication will take to complete
- you cannot search for tapes so you manually have to search when troubleshooting
- you cannot sort by date/time so it can easily get confusing on finding specific tapes
November 30, 2023
Simple, effective, and reliable
- It is simple to setup and manage
- It is very reliable
- There are no areas that need improvement for our use - it just works.
November 14, 2023
StarWind Virtual SAN user review
- it's minimal the hardware requirement
- it's can be scale to unlimited node
- low maintenance
- backup and restore the configuration
- sync pause for node restart
- zero-configuration when adding node
- Data recovery
- Cost-efficient
- Scalable
- Compatibility with broadcom network adapters
- Support is stellar. better than most
- Usage of existing Tools
- Proactive monitoring and alerting to issues that come up
- Improve supply chain availability
- Diversity of hardware providers
- a smaller entry level solution for branches or small offices
August 18, 2023
True 2-node VSAN, perfect for SMB!
- True 2-node VSAN
- Redundancy
- Stability
- Ease of use
- SMB-friendly pricing
- Documentation
August 11, 2023
Starwind vSAN 2 thumbs up
- Customer support
- Failover by using HCI
- Expanding storage easily
- Deduplication
- Encryption
- High latency stretched DR
- Scalability
- Resiliency
- Affordability
- Command Center availability with VMware
- More proactive touch points
- Recommendations based on monitoring, proactively
- High availabilty
- High performance
- Easy to administer
- More guidance/examples/suggestions on how to conduct the free evalutation with ur system
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- 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
- Cost effective software SAN
- Real time data replication
- Ease of deployment and management
- Better documentation about recommended hardware
- Better deployment instructions and guides
- Better documentation about update procedures in a 2 node cluster
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Improve compliance & risk management
- Create internal/operational efficiencies
- Unrivaled Performance on Minimalist Terms
- The management console of StarWind Virtual SAN is petty complex for does who are new with the product.
- It does not have local support partner in my country.
May 02, 2023
Enterprise grade software for SMB pricing.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Ease of Use
- Product Support
- Minimal Maintenance
- Reliability
- Deduplication
- Cost-effective
- Easy to deploy
- Good support
- Documentation could be more succinct
- Support is sometimes difficult to understand verbally
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Performance Efficient
- Cost Effective
- Easy to Deploy
- Management GUI
- Documentation
- 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.
- there is a "command center" VM recommended for monitoring and management which doesn't seem to provide as much value as hoped.
- We could not install SentinelOne EDR/XDR onto the hypervisor hosts due to the logic behind the vSAN storage.
- We realized we can not use Azure File Sync Share with Guest VMs on these hypervisors.
April 14, 2023
Great VSAN solution for limited budget
- shared storage for hyperconverged infra
- great support
- documentation sometimes a bit confused
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- High Availability
- Cost Effective
- Scalability
- Free Trail Version
- Easy to shift free trail to production
- Management Interface is quite techie for new users
March 30, 2023
Great Product - StartWind SAN
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- HA Functionality
- No unplanned downtime or performance issues
- Documentation can be improved
- 3rd Party Integration
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- High Availability: StarWind Virtual SAN is designed to provide high availability for mission-critical workloads
- Performance Optimization: StarWind Virtual SAN optimizes storage performance by using a variety of techniques, such as write-back caching, automated tiering, and deduplication
- Easy Scalability: StarWind Virtual SAN allows organizations to scale their storage infrastructure easily and cost-effectively
- Flexible Deployment: StarWind Virtual SAN can be deployed in a variety of configurations, including hyper-converged, converged, and storage-only
- Cost-Effective: StarWind Virtual SAN is a cost-effective solution for storage virtualization
- 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