StarWind Virtual SAN Other Solutions Considered
We did. We evaluated a number of solutions which I won't name here. StarWind came out on top.
View full review »MG
Michael J Gage
Network Operations Manager at LocalTel Yellow Pages
JG
Justin Graves
IT Supervisor at Area Agency on Aging Region 9, Inc.
We did also evaluate VMware, Nutanix, and Scale.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
We did eliminate several other solutions. That said, it has been too long to remember which ones. I remember worrying that StarWind's performance was going to be one of those too-good-to-be-true situations. It wasn't. The hype lived up to the performance and reliability.
View full review »NG
reviewer1823307
Field Engineering Lead at Superior Support Resources, Inc.
We also evaluated Open-E, StorMagic, NetAPP, and EMC.
BH
reviewer1881249
Director Of Information Technology at Cass County Government
We have gone through the gamut of technologies and examined Linbit, Ceph, non-clustered ZFS, cluster ZFS, HPE Nimble, Pure, and more.
View full review »We looked at our native Hypervisor's vSAN product, however, it required three nodes (or two with one witness node) and just wasn't feasible for our setup as an SMB.
View full review »We evaluated NetApp, Dell, SAN, and NAS solutions. All were way too costly.
View full review »We also evaluated StorMagic, VMware vSAN, and Datacore.
View full review »DR
Dan Reynolds
Director of IT at BLDD ARCHITECTS INC
I thought about another SAN but just didn't want to go down that road. The cost to upgrade my VMware licenses to get vSAN from them just didn't seem worth it.
View full review »Yes, we evaluated StorMagic before deciding on StarWind.
View full review »TW
reviewer1939125
Project Engineer at ACTA inc.
We looked at VMware vSAN.
View full review »We did not evaluate other options.
View full review »AL
reviewer2250711
Owner at Integral IT Services
We did not evaluate other options as the other options were prohibitively expensive.
We looked into VMware and others. They usually had a way higher cost or worse performance or worse GUI/documentation, or all of those things together.
View full review »I previously evaluated VMware.
View full review »I was not a part of the evaluation team.
View full review »We only evaluated StarWind.
View full review »We looked into a few other shared storage solutions, such as Dell and Nutanix.
View full review »JC
reviewer2020869
Network And Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
I did evaluate VMware vSAN.
View full review »We looked at VMware vSAN.
CK
reviewer1830756
System Administrator at Wilson Logistics
We considered storage spaces direct, however, didn't ever implement it on our new two-node cluster.
View full review »I evaluated other options and found StarWind Virtual SAN is a reliable and cost-effective solution.
View full review »AB
reviewer1615257
Works
Before deciding on the solution offered by StarWind, we also analyzed HPE LeftHand SAN Solutions, however, this was significantly more expensive.
View full review »DH
Dan Hoffmann
Web Services and Systems Development at a non-profit with 201-500 employees
We looked at Dell/EMC and HPE solutions and they were all extremely expensive.
A sales rep was quick to get me in touch with an engineer who patiently walked me through my endless questions of compatibility and setup. They even assisted with recommendations for host hard drives: both HDD and SSD options.
View full review »I did not evaluate other options.
View full review »We did not evaluate other options. We used other software from StarWind beforehand and were convinced of the quality of their products, so the first thing we looked into was StarWind's solution to our problems.
View full review »JM
reviewer1990683
Information Systems Security Officer at Graham Corp
We had experience with HPE Simplivity and VMware vSAN.
View full review »TO
reviewer1946562
Manager, Network at Burnham Holdings Inc
I looked at a few HCI (Dell, vxRail, and Nutanix) and the VMware vSAN solution. It was cost-prohibitive for me
View full review »I did look at purchasing EqualLogic, however, the cost of that hardware would be far greater than StarWind's
View full review »DM
Daniel P.
Works with 11-50 employees
We evaluated Dell and Nutanix.
View full review »SB
Shawn Bender
Global IS Admin at Benshaw, Inc.
We looked at Dell and Nutanix.
View full review »We did check for options, but as we are running Hyper-V natively, there were not a lot of options as we didn't have the budget to go for an expensive hardware solution, and Microsoft does not provide a solution to this problem in the same way that VMWare for example does.
View full review »We did not evaluate other options.
View full review »MB
MichaelBerman
Network Administrator at Armitage Technology Group Inc.
We did not evaluate other options.
View full review »We have evaluated a few options previously. However, I can't recall the names. That process was handled a year ago.
View full review »AR
reviewer2121606
Partner at Arbeit
We previously evaluated FreeNAS.
View full review »EH
reviewer2029359
NOC Operator at SEDOC
We did not evaluate other products before StarWind vSan.
View full review »BR
Brandon Robbins
Information Technology Supervisor at Northwest Medical Center-Winfield
We evaluated multiple options, including a software-only Nutanix solution and the VMware vSAN. These were both very expensive and had a very strict hardware compatibility list, which caused the project's budget to swell exponentially. We also looked at some open-source options such as ESOS and GlusterFS, however, these required many hours of setup and there wasn't a real enterprise support option for either.
View full review »TF
Tyler Funk
Sr. IT Systems Engineer at Weidner Property Management LLC
We looked at VMware vSAN.
View full review »GF
reviewer1727484
Chief Technology Expert at Rapid Response Networks
We did look at Dell and VMware SAN products as well.
View full review »FO
reviewer2114511
New Business and New Products Manager at dualBASE
We also evaluated VMware vSAN.
View full review »We looked into VMware, Hyper-V, and some other options.
View full review »KH
reviewer2165961
Senior Network Engineer at Accel Entertainment Inc
We briefly researched Dell and Microsoft options, but those were physical SAN solutions, not vSAN.
View full review »We took into consideration VMware vSAN or Veeam. However, we chose StarWind Virtual SAN.
View full review »RK
Ryan Kimbrel
Chief Information Officer at Scott County Hospital, Scott City, KS
I was not around when the decision to use StarWind came about. I don't know if there are other 3rd party vendors like StarWind.
View full review »We evaluated the physical tape library, however, it was too costly.
View full review »I used VMware and HyperV before, however, a colleague used StarWind Virtual SAN and he taught me how to use it and I liked the tool.
View full review »SN
Stefan Novak
Principal of ICT Infrastructure and Services at Northgate High School
We looked at other solutions from HP, Barracuda, Netapp, and Azure HCI.
RT
reviewer2143152
System Admin | Network Engineer | Project Lead at R.K. Black, Inc
We evaluated several solutions, including SCALE, Dell EMC, Dell MD Storage Arrays, HPE 3PAR, and others.
View full review »AC
happyuser
Integration Engineer at Insight
We looked into various hardware and software offerings from Nutanix, NetApp, and HPE. StarWind fills the void when the budget does not allow for the expensive hardware, and we have older systems we can repurpose.
View full review »For storage, I have explored Open NAS (Linux) and Windows NFS 3.0.
View full review »We looked into TrueNAS and Windows storage spaces.
View full review »No, we found the price point compelling, which led to immediately trying StarWinds versus traditional SAN costs from DELL and HP, etc.
View full review »BW
reviewer1825488
Director Of Technical Services at D-J Engineering Group Inc.
Yes, we looked at Dell PowerVault, HPE Lefthand, and Lenovo NAS.
View full review »I did not evaluate other options.
View full review »SH
reviewer1988301
Automation Engineer at Wunderlich-Malec Engineering
For the application, I compared it to a regular vSphere SAN. However, I did not compare it to other Hyper-Converged solutions. At the time, it was pretty clear that they had a long track record and a good reputation which aided in deciding on them as a solution.
View full review »RE
reviewer1938909
IT Infrastructure Manager at Highbridge Caravan Centre
We did look into a Netapp upgrade.
View full review »BH
reviewer1881249
Director Of Information Technology at Cass County Government
We looked at Truenas.
View full review »CM
reviewer1828902
I.T. Director at MBI
We considered VMware's native vSAN technology and may have gone with it if I hadn't found StarWind while searching for alternatives.
View full review »АС
reviewer1253973
Deputy Director at a government with 11-50 employees
We evaluated free options including FreeNAS and Ceph. Our experience was that FreeNAS has low performance and reliability, and Ceph was complex to deploy.
View full review »RG
Ricardo.XGZ
Network Specialist at Nexans aeA
Yes, we used HPE StoreVirtual, we moved to StarWind to reduce costs. We tried VMware VSAN and the cost was too elevated for our requirements.
View full review »LP
reviewer1924176
Head of Information Technology at Head of Information Technology
We did look at other hardware solutions.
View full review »We did not evaluate other options.
View full review »BS
Bryan Schuler
Network Administrator at MUM Industries
I did explore VMware's native VSAN solution. However, its biggest limitation is it requires three nodes. We have two very heavy duty host servers and getting a third one would have been costly. Each server is roughly around $25,000 USD. Therefore, getting a third one, so we could run a VSAN using VMware, was a bit prohibitive. This is why I went to StarWind in the first place.
View full review »SS
reviewer2185317
Area Sales Manager at ABPL
We have evaluated VMware and found the cost was a bit high compared to StarWind Virtual SAN.
View full review »AS
reviewer1986111
Chief Technology Officer at American Data Technology, Inc.
We looked at big-name solutions such as NetApp, Cisco, and others.
View full review »Yes, we had a look at Lenovo XClarity as well as Nutanix AOS and VMWare vSAN.
View full review »FS
reviewer1590771
Company Owner at a insurance company with 11-50 employees
We evaluated Microsoft S2D before choosing this product.
View full review »VMware vSAN financial aspects give StarWind an advantage.
View full review »BD
BM Duarte
IT Manager at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
We also looked at Microsoft and Dell.
View full review »JJ
reviewer2172270
Regional Service Team Manager at ATA Technologies
While each of my co-workers on this project researched their own solutions to this project, I only brought the idea of StarWind's vSAN to the table.
View full review »JG
Justin Graves
IT Supervisor at Area Agency on Aging Region 9, Inc.
CG
reviewer1684866
CIO at a renewables & environment company with 11-50 employees
We looked at VMware vSAN and a generic server plus SAN solution.
View full review »I evaluated VMware vSAN.
View full review »T.
TRAIANO ...
Technology Solutions, Support & Training at UNISONMEDIA Group, Inc.
I have looked at Nutanix and VMware.
View full review »MH
Matthew Henson
Owner at Split Digital LLC
We looked at StarWind Virtual SAN vs VMware vSAN and StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct.
With converged storage, we studied a lot of solutions and went into them all. We looked at Microsoft's solution for converged storage along with some of the other ones. StarWind had better pricing and deployment strategy. It also didn't have as many hardware requirements, which allowed us to spend some extra money on things that we really wanted, like 40GB network cards.
We read everything we could find when evaluating the solution. When you are doing something this critical with so many users who will be working on it all the time, you can't afford to tinker with it. We not only went and read all the reviews on StarWind, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, and VMware vSAN, but we put them in some trials and tested everything on our test network. StarWind was the one that we ultimately decided would fulfill our requirements. Happily, it has lived up to our expectations.
Of course, the support was a huge bonus. You don't know that until after you have put your money in, but once we had purchased it, we found out how good the support was all the way around.
View full review »PS
reviewer2017134
Senior Cloud Services Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I tried to use things like FreeNAS/TrueNAS. However, it just wasn't quite right for my needs, whereas StarWinds vSAN worked as expected.
View full review »BF
Bern Farrant
Security and Systems Engineer at New Creation Consulting
We tested out Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and priced out other competing traditional SAN options.
View full review »We had thought about proprietary SANs, but those didn't fit our requirements for cost and flexibility.
View full review »BB
Branden Beachy
Works at GOSHEN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
We looked at EMC and HP, but both were also much more expensive than a system we could build ourselves based on the StarWind software.
View full review »EK
Evgenii Korsak
Works
Before choosing this solution we evaluated HPE SimpliVity, Scale Computing, and Dell EMC.
JM
FAFCO
Director of Technology at FAFCO, Inc.
Yes, we looked at Nutanix and several traditional dedicated SANs.
View full review »FE
Felix E.
Technischer IT-Berater at ITC GmbH
Due to budget constraints, Ceph has been evaluated as an alternative. We also took a look at Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and VMware vSAN.
View full review »We did evaluate VMware.
View full review »PL
reviewer1667487
Senior Technical Architect at HSData LTD
We initially looked at several external shared storage solutions and found them to be cost-prohibitive. We then evaluated vSAN solutions from HPE (this was discontinued) and the native solution from VMware. The native solution from VMware had fewer moving parts than the StarWind vSAN solution, but was more expensive and didn't provide the required level of flexibility that we needed regarding mixed HDD/SDD storage.
View full review »LF
reviewer1909134
Enterprise Cloud Manager at Exponential-e
No other options were considered. This as hardware had already been purchased.
View full review »MC
reviewer1544394
CEO, Founder at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
We evaluated VMware vSAN and StorMagic.
View full review »SS
reviewer1679403
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
We evaluated HP SAN, Nutanix, and Dell Storage.
View full review »I did preliminary pricing on HP, Dell & Nimble, but the costs associated with hardware were going to present a challenge to our school at this point.
View full review »StarWind came highly recommended and rightly so.
View full review »GP
reviewer1602693
CEO at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
We did look at DataCore.
View full review »I didn't evaluate any other options, as I'm not aware of another software that does this.
View full review »We also considered the option of VMware vSAN, but it is very expensive.
AC
AntonChernomazov
SAO Dept. Head at LLC BIT
I had read an article about Intel X520 network cards performance testing with StarWind vSAN, and we chose it. No other options were evaluated.
View full review »JJ
reviewer2056521
Solutions Architect at ITsavvy
We've also looked into VMware.
View full review »LW
reviewer1904538
Technical Helpdesk Manager at PurpleJelly Ltd
I can't recall seeing anything else that caught my eye.
View full review »CV
Christopher Vlach
Operations Manager at Lipman Insurance Administrators Inc.
Dell EMC, Nimble, 3PAR.
View full review »GD
George.Arias
Virtualized Solutions Engineer at Quanti solutions
We looked into Qnap and Synology.
View full review »PL
reviewer1834653
Application Engineer at Rakuten
We did ook at VMware vSAN.
View full review »We immediately chose Starwind because our system administrator had experience with this product in the past.
View full review »MH
MarkMgr
IT Manager at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees
We looked into Tegile and Tintri, about two years prior. We've also looked at some Dell EMC solutions. We were able to go with any hardware vendor we wanted to and the reviews for the software solution showed that it was highly recommended.
View full review »NC
Nikos Chavenetidis
Technical Department Manager at ACS SA
We did not evaluate other options. We have only classic storage and filers.
View full review »We evaluated Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, but it was too restrictive in terms of configuration.
View full review »I have read about different solutions, especially VMware vSAN. In comparing these two, it is easy to choose StarWind for a company the size of mind, with needs that StarWind can easily cover.
I have done some research on that subject and everything directed me to StarWind VSAN. Now, I can clearly state that I do not regret my decision.
View full review »AK
Artur Kamalov
Head of Local Area Network Department at JSC Ufanet
We did not evaluate other products because this option was the only one available at our cost point.
View full review »I didn't. StarWind was the first solution I found, and after the first tests, I stopped looking at other solutions.
View full review »AM
reviewer1238652
Works at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
We evaluated solutions by HPE, EMC, and NetApp.
View full review »The timeline to get the storage was extremely limited so I didn't have time to do evaluation testing.
View full review »НФ
Николай Фокин
Works at Cloud4y.ru #1 корпоративный облачный провайдер
We evaluated other options prior to this, but we didn't like them.
View full review »AH
ITManagefb53
IT Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
We didn't evaluate any other vendors. In our price range, this was the only vendor.
View full review »We evaluated the following other options:
- Using traditional architecture by buying external storage and connecting it to the three existing nodes
- Using a VMware solution. However, this will lead to losing the Microsoft licenses, and VMware costs more than StarWind Virtual SAN
AA
Abuu Almas
Director of Technical Sales at SSTL Group
I was directly recommended by the manufacturer.
View full review »MP
Poberezhnyy Maxim
Engineer at Peoples' Friendship University of Russia
As an alternative to StarWind vSAN for Hyper-V, I considered Microsoft S2D, but I had to abandon it due to the fact that it does not support hardware RAID.
Before we purchased StarWind, we evaluated several software solutions and a couple of hardware solutions. In the case of the software solutions, StarWind was the clear winner in performance and ease of use. In comparison to the hardware solutions, it was a lot more economical.
We fully evaluated Open-E and StarWind. StarWind was both easier to set up and manage, and it also outperformed Open-E.
View full review »I did not evaluate other products before choosing this one.
View full review »RI
reviewer1083804
Director of IT and Corporate Security at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
We evaluated other solutions including SimpliVity and VMware vSAN, but StarWind Virtual SAN was on top (best choice). This was not just because it fit our budget, but for their pre and after sales support.
We were unable to evaluate other options because the dedicated SAN systems that provided the same level of redundancy were out of our price range.
View full review »KL
Kamil
Specialist in the center of security at PERN S.A.
No other options were evaluated.
DG
reviewer1001628
Information Systems Manager at a aerospace/defense firm with 51-200 employees
We looked into Nutanix, as well as Red Hat's solution, but StarWind seemed to be the best setup for us, the best fit for our environment.
View full review »LZ
Lukasz Z.
VMware Administrator, VMware vExpert at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
We evaluated VMware vSAN and HPE StoreVirtual VSA.
View full review »We looked at Nimble, HPE VSA, and Tegile storage.
View full review »We evaluated VMware before settling on this product.
View full review »TT
Tamim
Regional IT Manager at SABIS
We chose this product based on its good reviews.
View full review »We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective.
View full review »I looked at a number of other options including EMC, NetApp, Dell, HPE, etc.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.