We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Virtualize and StarWind Storage 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."The ability to have a feature-rich software set which extends the capabilities of the back-end storage arrays."
"It lowers cost. It does so by getting more efficient use out of the technology behind it."
"Migration from configurations where servers have storage provisioned from older SAN disk systems to newer storage systems is almost seamless using image mode migration techniques, with only a short outage of the servers."
"The abstraction flair and the abstraction layer. We had a mixture of different storage arrays, and the wonderful thing about SVC is is that it normalizes all it into a single driver. A single view that all hosts see simultaneously."
"It's got full features, so we can compress volumes. We can do thin volumes and we can change them on the fly."
"It has the ability to seamlessly move hardware in and out as we refresh technology."
"I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers."
"When we add storage behind it, the product is good for the customers because their customers do not notice that anything is happening due to the virtualization."
"We saw an ROI. We have saved both time and money by using it."
"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."
"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 management interface is the most valuable feature for us."
"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."
"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."
"We are able to easily back up our data and send it to an offsite location."
"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."
"I hate I/O groups. If you start swapping I/O groups, they can be potentially risky. If they could get rid of the whole I/O group principle, the risk is not there anymore. I understand the fundamental thing about I/O groups, but they are risky."
"I would like to see more baseline replication and integration with the operating system between Vmware and IBMI."
"Tighter integration with cloud storage might be useful as a target for a variety of use cases."
"There are big arrays now, and if a customer wants add more disks to it, you have to have another array. Adding disks to existing arrays is one of the most demanded things from our customers."
"For improvement considerations, I would probably say multiple sites."
"GUI should be developed in HTML5 as opposed to Java."
"Adding features for data deduplication is one area of improvement."
"The integration would be an option that we would like, but I understand that's not how it's going to be implemented."
"They could improve by providing integration with HP."
"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."
"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."
"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."
"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."
"The dashboard features are not in the free version."
"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."
"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."
IBM Spectrum Virtualize is ranked 15th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 36 reviews while StarWind Storage Appliance is ranked 10th in NAS with 9 reviews. IBM Spectrum Virtualize is rated 8.8, while StarWind Storage Appliance is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Virtualize writes "A highly scalable product that is relatively easy to use and set up". 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". IBM Spectrum Virtualize is most compared with Dell VPLEX, VMware vSAN, VxRail, IBM Spectrum Scale and DataCore SANsymphony, whereas StarWind Storage Appliance is most compared with FreeNAS, StoneFly VSO NAS, StorMagic SvSAN and VMware vSAN. See our IBM Spectrum Virtualize vs. StarWind Storage Appliance report.
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