Starwind VSAN solution for SMB to enjoy simple enterprise storage solution
October 08, 2019

Starwind VSAN solution for SMB to enjoy simple enterprise storage solution

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with StarWind Virtual SAN

It is currently being used by the small office of JLT in Barbados. It supports 11 users on-premises and runs across three VMware physical hosts. It addresses problems of business continuity due to potential system failures that can happen and hence VSAN allows for redundancy to be apart of the business resilience in having highly available systems. Another business issue was less complex and integrated storage solution where all computing services can run and be managed from a single hypervisor platform such as VMware.

Pros

  • Integration into already existing infrastructure.
  • Provides immediate high availability of storage for VMs.
  • Excellent customer support if you do not have storage experience IT staff essentially Starwind highly experienced engineers provides support not only for VSAN but also on your VM estate to ensure your infrastructure is optimal.

Cons

  • It can have an easier way to reboot the VMs that manage the storage for the hypervisor to avoid long syncing between storage nodes. My storage runs on Win 2012 VM and when patching the OS I have to reboot and sometimes the VSAN service hangs and I have to force a reboot. OS boots fine but sometimes it does long syncs, like 11 hours to replicate changes to the other two storage nodes.
  • A manual assignment of which hosts is primary if all hosts failed due to sudden power outage. This can allow for the host that has a priority 1 status not to have a fill synchronization of storage as the other storage nodes in cluster syncs to this host.
  • The VSAN software has an all-compassing feature set in the console that may concern other products of Starwind. I suggest a more simple console for system admins like me and closer to Vmware builtin VSAN solution.
  • Save on buying extra hardware for storage
  • Save on buying VMware vSAN license
  • Save on hiring storage expertise to manage IT storage estate
Starwind VSAN is also as integrated as these other solutions but its cost point is ridiculously less to integrate. Also, Starwind VSAN literally configures your environment and helps you manage it. Also by extension, you have more flexibility in adding storage to the VSAN solution than with the other integrated solutions.
It can be contacted anytime. They are professional and very customer friendly. They are the IT you do not have. Also, they are tedious and thorough in their support.

Do you think StarWind Virtual SAN delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with StarWind Virtual SAN's feature set?

Yes

Did StarWind Virtual SAN live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of StarWind Virtual SAN go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy StarWind Virtual SAN again?

Yes

It is well suited for tight budget environments that need enterprise storage features. Such features like high availability and disaster recovery or business continuity.

It is also good for remote management of enterprise storage in branch offices.

Starwind now sells appliance solutions with dedicated IT support so that is a plus for persons with larger User environment with a lack of IT resources.

It may not suit a basic test environment or worth the cost if the estate has a hyper V shop for a small user base less than 50 as the VSAN licensing may be prohibited when you already have Microsoft licenses and sufficient support.

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