We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."StarWind SANs come with outstanding support."
"The StarWind products have enabled our organization to modernize stations where larger and more expensive equipment was not an option."
"It also provides a high degree of mobility, as the virtual SAN can be moved relatively painlessly between on-site devices and the cloud."
"We went from "no way DB applications would have good performance" to "Wow! We can now actually have a DB running and have some VMs running at the same time.""
"They offer top-tier support."
"It also provides a seamless and efficient solution for personal storage requirements, showcasing the versatility and scalability of my Virtual SAN configuration."
"The installation of StarWind Virtual SAN was pretty easy, and the configuration was done in no time."
"I like StarWind's high availability. The failover is almost immediate, so the end users have no idea the guest VM moved at all. We can failover all guest VMs onto a single hypervisor, place it into maintenance mode, install updates, and reboot a hypervisor all during the daytime and remotely, with confidence the process will be successful."
"For us, fault tolerance is the most important feature of DataCore."
"Auto-tiering to obtain performance at a lower cost without the customer having to purchase ultra-fast storage is great."
"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are many counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."
"Our central storage has very high availability. DataCore SANsymphony ensures high business continuity."
"Oracle OLTP benchmark to test how it improves the performance while using flash drive NVMe."
"The use of the RAM cache allows you to speed up the writing and reading of data while also allowing for a possible increase in performance by increasing the RAM on the servers."
"The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware-vCenter."
"I'd have to say that the biggest improvement gained by using SANsymphony has to be the performance of the product."
"Overall, the solution has improved our system's performance. I was concerned about the physical-to-virtual conversion of our database server. It's actually much faster now, as a virtualized host on this Hyper-V cluster."
"The high-quality hardware options, directly affecting performance, have significantly improved the user experience and are well worth the cost."
"The added speed of using standard HDD and SSD meant we could increase what services are stored on the servers without having to have additional servers."
"The product runs wonderfully and has already gone through several failure tests."
"Servers came pre-configured for our environment and as soon as they were in the rack, Starwind got them up and running."
"High-availability is what I bought it for."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the redundancy and its cost. I used to have a SAN, a Dell EMC EqualLogic. Unfortunately, it was they call an "inverted pyramid of doom." It was two or three hosts, two switches, and one storage array at the very bottom. But the SAN, the storage array at the very bottom, is a single point of failure..."
"The presence of built-in storage saved the company from having to purchase a separate storage array and related network equipment."
"The GUI deserves a little love."
"While StarWind.com excels in numerous areas, there are a couple of notable functionalities that it currently lacks. One of these is duplication, which could be an invaluable feature for data redundancy and backup purposes. The ability to duplicate data across different storage locations can be crucial for safeguarding against data loss, and its absence is a minor limitation in an otherwise stellar offering."
"High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."
"An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"This product could be improved with the inclusion of new health check procedures."
"The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own."
"Datacore is developing a new WebUI with new dashboards. It is a good idea as the classic GUI is lacking dashboards."
"The alert system could have more features."
"The cloud reporting interface is quite poor compared to other vendors."
"NVMeoF should be implemented. This protocol will play a major role in storage infrastructure in the future."
"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."
"If you're dealing with big databases or transactional databases, it might not be the best-suited solution. The design of DataCore's solution isn't oriented towards this type of data."
"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."
"The graphical interface is not always very stable."
"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."
"The only thing my team has recommended improving on is possibly a StarWind-customized GUI to monitor the overall system health, similar to 5nine Manager."
"Perhaps the initial configuration and documentation could be a little clearer and simpler to follow."
"The truth is that the operation and support offered is good, but we consider that the product's usability could improve, as well as the data resynchronization time after an unexpected closure."
"I honestly cannot think of anything else to be improved, as I rarely have to interact with the Starwind product."
"Over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me of those issues and effortlessly guided me through the process of correcting the issue with minimal effort on my part."
"The StarWind Command Center web portal could use some work."
"A possible thing is perhaps a customer portal to schedule a time with support online via a calendar."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 4th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 54 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.2, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of DataCore SANsymphony writes "Robust with good replication and access protection ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage, StorMagic SvSAN and VxRail, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best HCI vendors.
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