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A StarWind Virtual SAN Review - from the SMB perspective.
June 13, 2019

A StarWind Virtual SAN Review - from the SMB perspective.

Dan Reynolds | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with StarWind Virtual SAN

We are 100% virtualized at the desktop and utilize VMware for VDI. During the last hardware refresh for our VDI I decided to use StarWind VSAN. Because of some VMware licensing snafus we were left out on the VMware vSAN product. We are a mid-sized architectural firm with 3 offices, some rental "spaces" and a great deal of our users work from home several days a week. We even have a few totally remote employees.

We formerly had a hardware/proprietary SAN solution. It was end of life and their replacement product would not meet our needs. I had to balance performance, speed, cost and reliability. Starwind does a good job of ticking off those boxes.
  • StarWind is economical, it uses your existing hardware and unlike some other VSAN solutions doesn't require a witness node.
  • Because you're using your own hardware - and you get to pick your hardware - you can be very flexible in how you set your VSAN up. Helping balance the cost/performance issue.
  • StarWind setup and support is stellar. They go above and beyond to make sure you are setup correctly.
  • This is repeating a bit but StarWind is very flexible and configurable. Lots of options.
  • Although StarWind supports you through your entire setup and implementation process, which is good, their documentation is pretty weak. It's hard to grab their manual and look up why they did this or that. I would like better reference documentation.
  • Performance monitoring and event viewing could be much better. Should have built in notifications to let you know when something is wrong.
  • Very affordable
  • Very flexible
  • Good support
Simply put VMware vSAN - if not included in your license package - is not cost effective at all for an SMB. It was totally out of our price range. Not worth the license upcharge at all. And as I previously mentioned StarWind VSAN is much more cost effective than any hardware solution.
I think the product scales well and though I'm no longer in an enterprise environment - I could see it being used even in an enterprise environment. On the flip side I think it is tailor made for SMB environments. The flexibility on how you want to set it up, their ability to guide you through the setup & implementation process is just what an SMB needs. I think the price compared to hardware solutions is beyond compare. Performance has been great. I think you get a whole lot of bang for your buck.