As a IT professional, I have the opportunity to work with a variety of software solutions, and I must say that StarWind Virtual SAN is truly exceptional
March 30, 2023
As a IT professional, I have the opportunity to work with a variety of software solutions, and I must say that StarWind Virtual SAN is truly exceptional
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with StarWind Virtual SAN
We deploy StarWind Virtual SAN to create a shared storage pool from the existing hardware resources. We install StarWind Virtual SAN software on the ESXi hosts and configure them to use local storage devices, such as SSDs and HDDs, to create a highly available storage cluster. By doing so, we achieve several benefits. First, we can improve the performance of virtualized environment by leveraging the local storage devices. Second, we reduce the costs associated with upgrading existing SAN, as StarWind Virtual SAN allows to use existing hardware resources. Third, we improve the scalability of storage environment by adding additional hosts and storage devices as needed.
Pros
- 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
Cons
- 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
- StarWind Virtual SAN has helped many organizations reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO) for storage. This has been achieved through cost savings in areas such as hardware, power, cooling, and maintenance
- Provides high-performance, low-latency storage that is optimized for virtualization, which can help improve the speed and responsiveness of applications
- Provides synchronous replication, automated failover, and real-time replication monitoring, which helps ensure that data is always available and accessible
StarWind Virtual SAN is generally less expensive than VMware vSAN, especially when it comes to licensing costs. StarWind Virtual SAN is licensed per node, whereas VMware vSAN requires a license for each CPU core in each node. This can make VMware vSAN significantly more expensive for larger deployments. Also StarWind Virtual SAN is a vendor-agnostic solution that can work with a wide variety of hardware and software, including VMware vSphere
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
Evaluating StarWind Virtual SAN and Competitors
- Cloud Solutions
- Scalability
I would choose this product straight away. It is tested already, so we do not have the need to look for any more alternatives
StarWind Virtual SAN Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
We did not purchase premium support because we are able to solve ongoing questions on our own or using knowledgebase. However, if we ever have the urgency to do so, we would consider buying premium support.
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