We performed a comparison between FreeNAS and StarWind Storage Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two NAS solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy."
"I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"The integration is excellent."
"Another good feature is that you can pause the appliance if you want to move it from one location to another and then once it's moved you can resume it, this way you can physically move the whole cluster or storage without any downtime. Its really easy to use, if you have a good foundation in storage and clustering then you will need less then one hour to figure out how to operate it."
"The management interface is the most valuable feature for us."
"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."
"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."
"They call us when monitoring shows a possible issue and are very flexible in working with our schedule to troubleshoot when it is convenient for us."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"They offered onsite installation, but we chose to do it ourselves. That took longer and was more work for us but saved us a ton of money in the end."
"They could improve by providing integration with HP."
"The dashboard features are not in the free version."
"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."
"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."
"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."
"With StarWind Storage Appliance, it would be better to have an overall easier setup with a little bit of configuration changes since, currently, even a small mistake may cause the setup process to go wrong."
"StarWind should improve the synchronization time of its product. There should be a standard operating procedure (SOP) for synchronization to reduce the time it takes."
FreeNAS is ranked 9th in NAS with 9 reviews while StarWind Storage Appliance is ranked 10th in NAS with 9 reviews. FreeNAS is rated 8.4, while StarWind Storage Appliance is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of FreeNAS writes "Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind Storage Appliance writes "Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes". FreeNAS is most compared with HPE StoreEasy, Qumulo, Dell PowerScale (Isilon), NetApp FAS Series and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas StarWind Storage Appliance is most compared with StorMagic SvSAN, DataCore SANsymphony and StoneFly VSO NAS. See our FreeNAS vs. StarWind Storage Appliance report.
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