StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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.
To learn more, read our detailed StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Storage Appliance Report (Updated: July 2023).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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 StarWind array has greatly improved our workflow internally as it is quite easy to use and provides robust features that allow us to provide anything our clients need quickly and efficiently.""We also substantially reduced network complexity by eliminating that standalone SAN. That reduced complexity has allowed us to concentrate on improving other areas of our network.""The setup was easy to deploy, and management is simplified compared with traditional SAN solutions.""The hardware footprint is perfect. It fits in our rack perfectly, and we were able to condense a lot of physical servers we had. It has greatly eliminated the excess stuff in our server rack...""We opted for 24-hour monitoring and support, which has already paid for itself.""I do like that I can manage StarWind with a console running on my local desktop.""We no longer need multiple staff members performing small, mundane tasks.""Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."

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"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 are able to easily back up our data and send it to an offsite location.""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.""It is very easy to use and very cost effective.""Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy.""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 integration is excellent."

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Cons
"I would request that the terms and conditions be reviewed and made more acceptable to corporate security so that we could finally turn on the proactive support feature, as it is included with our support agreement.""We ran into some issues with going from Hyper-V 2012 R2 to Hyper-V 2019.""The only thing that can use improvement is the StarWind Management Console and Command Center.""The StarWind Command Center web portal could use some work.""Possible new features could be CSV-level snapshot capability, Veeam integration, and maybe a more straightforward setup. Granted, you don't have to worry about setups with the HCA, but if you want to implement StarWind vSAN in a lab to test it is a tedious setup process.""We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance.""I wish I understood what goes into the StarWind software a little bit better. To me, it's kind of magic the way some of it works. As an IT professional, you don't really want things to be magic. I do wish there was a little more "Here's how it works." There could be more documentation given to administrators...""Most meetings are done via Zoom, and I'm sure you could switch to a text based conversation if needed as they seem like a very accommodating team. It's not something I would worry about if you are a potential client."

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"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes.""The dashboard features are not in the free version.""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.""An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products.""They could improve by providing integration with HP.""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."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."
  • "Its cost was reasonable."
  • "This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
  • "When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
  • "The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
  • "I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."
  • "The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
  • "We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."
  • More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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:StarWind's proactive support is my favorite feature.
    Top Answer:Keep in mind that StarWind VMs for the vSAN will take up 24GB of memory per host. If you do decide to go with StarWind, adjust your hardware configuration appropriately if you need those memory… more »
    Top Answer:I honestly don't have anything to complain about. Nothing is perfect, though, over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me… more »
    Top Answer: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.
    Top Answer: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. StarWind… more »
    Top Answer:From an improvement perspective, I can't comment much about StarWind Storage Appliance since we use only two to three nodes in our company, with which I am currently happy. If I use the product at an… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    1,132
    Comparisons
    320
    Reviews
    33
    Average Words per Review
    661
    Rating
    9.7
    10th
    out of 27 in NAS
    Views
    543
    Comparisons
    411
    Reviews
    4
    Average Words per Review
    698
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Overview

    For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA. 

    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. 

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    Sample Customers
    Sears Home and Franchise Business
    Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Construction Company12%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Transportation Company8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company20%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Retailer6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Government9%
    University7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise47%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business44%
    Midsize Enterprise33%
    Large Enterprise22%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise55%
    Buyer's Guide
    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Storage Appliance
    July 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Storage Appliance and other solutions. Updated: July 2023.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews while StarWind Storage Appliance is ranked 10th in NAS with 9 reviews. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6, while StarWind Storage Appliance is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". 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". StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Dell PowerFlex, VMware vSAN, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN, whereas StarWind Storage Appliance is most compared with FreeNAS, StoneFly VSO NAS, VMware vSAN and StorMagic SvSAN. See our StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. StarWind Storage Appliance report.

    We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) 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.