NetApp HCI [EOL] vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and StarWind Storage Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware and others in HCI.
To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: March 2024).
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Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The user interface for this application is amazing.""It has a nice, simple control panel. You can clearly see the state and health of storage along with the synchronization.""A typical system administrator with minimal experience in Hyper-V, VMware, or Windows can do VSAN configuration and maintain VSAN operations.""The most valuable feature of this solution is the support. They are excellent and you can learn a lot from the support team.""With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability.""StarWind Virtual SAN offers high availability and data resilience features to prevent data loss if hardware fails.""In our case, the cost and high availability are the two most important factors which we were looking for in a solution.""We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"We like SnapMirror and we've been using it for many years. We also like the object storage tools, as well as cloud sync for customers wanting to integrate between the cloud and local.""NetApp HCI is a stable solution.""The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained.""Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure.""This is a strong product and it works very well, and the processes around it continue to grow and mature.""It has reduced our hypervisor footprint by around 20%.""HCI definitely improved how flexible we scale, and our entrance into the cloud. The features are very rich, in terms of both avenues. It's helped us flexibly move and shift our workloads around, back and forth.""The multi-vertical aspect is what is most valuable for us. The main reason we wanted a multi protocol was because Amazon was not able to provide us with access to the same data as we could get from Linux and Windows lengths. That was our value proposition for this solution."

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"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.""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.""Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night.""We saw an ROI. We have saved both time and money by using it.""The integration is excellent.""Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy.""The management interface is the most valuable feature for us.""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."

More StarWind Storage Appliance Pros →

Cons
"The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works.""The logs can also become very noisy when there is an issue, which is very infrequent.""The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen.""I see no need for major improvements but there could be some improvements in the form of notifications and the simplifying of maintenance mode.""If there was one feature I would like to see it would be a built-in subsystem for managing UPS backups shutdown procedures providing a way to initiate VM shutdown on all host servers, shut down the host servers, then put the fault-tolerant mirroring in standby, and finally shut down the StarWind SANs.""It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings.""Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users.""They need to improve the speed of the interfaces, thus allowing for better traffic on the network."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"Its stability is very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crash.""Because I like block mode, I'd like to see SAN connectivity. I would like to be able to easily put it into my current environment.""In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency.""It would be nice to have better access to tutorials and a test environment for simulations.""I would like to see higher level graphics support because we are going to be doing some virtual desktop for our CAD software, and I want to be able to support AutoCAD and Cantillo on remote desktop machines.""They could improve the packaging.""I'd like to see some additional graphics capabilities because I'd like to look at some virtual desktop integration for CAD software.""It is easy to install now, but could potentially be even simpler."

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"The dashboard features are not in the free version.""Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes.""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.""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.""They could improve by providing integration with HP.""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.""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."

More StarWind Storage Appliance Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
  • "We are happy with the price."
  • "The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
  • "The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
  • "When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
  • "The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
  • "The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go."
  • "The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."
  • "Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."
  • "There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."
  • "All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
  • "You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
  • "This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."
  • "Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
  • "The licensing fees are renewed annually."
  • More NetApp HCI [EOL] Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It costs about 50,000 euros."
  • "StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."
  • "On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."
  • "The cost is determined by various factors, including the amount of terabyte storage you require, the number of nodes you want to purchase, and the duration of your maintenance agreement"
  • "With StarWind Storage Appliance, the payments made towards the licensing part of the product are on a per-node basis, making it cost-effective for us to use the solution in our company."
  • "We found that the price of StarWind was very good compared to VMware or Nutanix."
  • More StarWind Storage Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines… more »
    Top Answer:I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. Also, consider the paid version if… more »
    Top Answer:You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the… more »
    Top Answer:It is scalable, and NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) makes its deployment easier.
    Top Answer:Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market.
    Top Answer:At the moment, I am not looking for new features. Quality of Service (QoS) and capacity efficiency are the two things… more »
    Top Answer:I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical… more »
    Top Answer:With StarWind Storage Appliance, the payments made towards the licensing part of the product are on a per-node basis… more »
    Top Answer:From an improvement perspective, I can't comment much about StarWind Storage Appliance since we use only two to three… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    Learn More
    Overview

    StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

    NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

    For SMB and Enterprises who are looking for high performance primary storage for server virtualization, VDI, database and Big Data scenarios, or inexpensive secondary backup tier, our solution is StarWind Storage Appliance. It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, and associated software into an easily scalable storage platform.

    Additionally, the appliance features an optional gateway to Azure public cloud, which helps to implement an effective Disaster Recovery plan or meet regulatory requirements. StarWind SA scales up by adding individual disks and flash modules, or JBODs, while adding ready controller nodes allows scaling out. 

    StarWind SA targets those, who need high-performance primary storage or secondary storage for backup. In case there is a whole virtualization infrastructure to build from scratch, StarWind HCA will come in handy. Otherwise, if all the required hardware is present, StarWind Virtual SAN will be enough to build a high-performance virtualization setup. 

    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
    Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company8%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Transportation Company15%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Pharma/Biotech Company10%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Government11%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Government11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    University7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise53%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise67%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business44%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise22%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business34%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise53%
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware and others in HCI. Updated: March 2024.
    767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    NetApp HCI [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in HCI with 32 reviews while StarWind Storage Appliance is ranked 10th in NAS with 9 reviews. NetApp HCI [EOL] is rated 8.0, while StarWind Storage Appliance is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of NetApp HCI [EOL] writes "Ease of provisioning has allowed us to implement large installations in a very short time frame". 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". NetApp HCI [EOL] is most compared with , whereas StarWind Storage Appliance is most compared with FreeNAS, StoneFly VSO NAS, StorMagic SvSAN and VMware vSAN.

    We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.