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Clustering with StarWind VSAN
April 18, 2019

Clustering with StarWind VSAN

Evgenii Korsak | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with StarWind Virtual SAN

Our organization is a public school district with 1000+ staff and around 10,000 students. Before StarWind VSAN, we used stand-alone Hyper-V hypervisors with DAS for all of our server infrastructure needs. Server configuration changes and updates resulted in downtime for VMs and needed to be scheduled in advance. By StarWind VSAN as shared storage for Hyper-V cluster, we are able to reduce downtime and improve the redundancy of our infrastructure.
  • VSAN can be used with existing servers, no need to purchase additional hardware. Vendor lock-in is low.
  • Licensing is uncomplicated. Free version with limited functionality is available, as well as the trial of the full version.
  • Support is very knowledgeable and helpful. StarWind offered advice on how to fix possible performance bottlenecks during configuration of the cluster, for example.
  • Documentation for Hyper-V clustering is very good. Many vendors are focused on VMware but not StarWind
  • Cluster configuration, while not complicated, can be a time-consuming process.
  • Downtime is significantly reduced.
  • With StarWind VSAN, our organization has redundancy in case of server failure.
  • Money saved, as there was no need to purchase new hardware
StarWind was chosen based on three factors: great Hyper-V support, no need to purchase extra hardware, and low license price.
In my opinion, StarWind VSAN is very good for Hyper-V clusters, hyper-converged clusters built on existing hardware, small organizations (2 node cluster is possible). For organizations using VMware and/or looking to purchase custom hardware appliances, there are many choices available. Without discounting StarWind VSAN, I would shop around more if I looked to purchase appliances or used VMware as a hypervisor.