We utilized HPE Lefthand vSAN as well as VMware vSAN. As noted previously, these products were simply not a good fit for us or were phased out.

We did use something else and originally switched as no other solution at the time had real high availability. Most products just offered fail-over options.

We did not have a "solution" like this before. We previously had a hodgepodge of parts, servers, and service providers, which is nothing compared to what we have now.

Historically, I had used HPE Lefthand for sync rep storage. While it did the job, it was definitely older technology and has been unsettled.

Before we had a physical SAN, maybe the HP MSA P2300 (I may have gotten the model number wrong).

It was just too expensive and demanding of physical links/resources to go with another MSA, so we decided to try a Virtual SAN.

We have a NetApp SAN. We switched as our storage was downsized by about half due to moving systems to the cloud and the SAN was EOL.

We did not use a different solution previously.

We used HP StoreVirtual. The switch was needed as it came to its end-of-life and end-of-support.

We used a conventional hardware SAN. EMC VNXe. It was end of life and I even tried replacing it - EMC could not make it work right. It kept dropping connections. I kept running the old VNXe and discovered StarWind VSAN. Glad I did.

We did not use another storage solution like StarWind. Rather, we used an array of NAS Servers, which served a combined iSCSI storage. This approach is more professional and in line with the industry.

We did not previously use a different solution.

We did not previously use a different solution. 

We've used other solutions with some of our clients, and while we like them better, they're also an order of magnitude more expensive and didn't fit our budget.

We previously used Microsoft S2D. It had bad documentation, offered bad performance, and had bad GUI and bad CLI.

I did not use a different solution.

I did not use any other solution.

We previously used an HP solution, however, it was unstable.

I did not previously use a different solution. 

I did not use a different soltion. 

This was our first move to a vSAN solution.

Previously, we were using Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct across a three-node environment. We switched due to the fact that we sold a portion of our company and downsized to two nodes. Storage Spaces Direct doesn't seem ideal for a two-node system.

Yes, I use VMware vSAN and FreeNAS.

Previously, I only used physical servers.

I was forced to replace my traditional physical SAN when I was unable to get additional service parts, even as it was still under a support contract. I needed a full-featured, low-cost replacement for it.

StarWind came highly recommended throughout various IT channels and colleagues.

I did not use a different solution previously.

We did use another solution. The previous solution was open source, and we needed some kind of real support on the other end to guarantee reliability.

We previously used a traditional SAN from Nimble and the virtual storage solution, HPE Simplivity. Both other solutions were more expensive. HPE was strongly tied to both the underlying hardware and the hypervisor and didn't allow for any flexibility.

We used an MS 2008r2 Cluster many years ago. Prior to StarWind vSAN, were using static servers.

Previously we were using a Synology NAS

We did not use any other solution. StarWind was our first.

We previously had a single server that was out of support.

We did not have any other solutions before this, this was a whole new use case.

We used native Hyper-V replication before this, which didn't provide the high availability we were looking for.

We did not previously use a different solution.

We were a using conventional backup solution previously.

The previous solution we used was a traditional SAN.

We previously used Nutanix, which was extremely expensive and nearly ALL of the documentation was behind a support contract. Most of the components had cryptic names, and there were very few options for finding a solution yourself.

We did not previously use a different solution. 

We did not previously use a different solution.

We also used VMware VSAN and Nutanix. The StarWind Virtual SAN seems to be more flexible and easier to manage in the case we were developing.

We evaluated other solutions, however, it is the first one that we implemented.

I have worked with NetApp, Lenovo, EMC, and some other brands as well for storage with VMware and Hyper V. 

StarWind is easy to manage as compared to these and is a cheap solution with very similar features. 

We used single hypervisors but had never had a failover cluster before StarWind vSAN.

We did not previously use a different solution.

We did not use a different solution.

We did not have a previous solution. This was an add-on solution to our existing backup solution.

I previously used VMware and switched to StarWind Virtual SAN for the cost savings.

We used NetApps SANtricity for the past 10+ years. The System was old, outdated, and out of warranty. Our support contract ended with them last year, so we needed a new solution with support and better software.

Previously we have used other SAN solutions that did not provide the same level of redundancy or support.

We used to use VMware vSAN.

I have not used a different solution. During my search, StarWind was the first site that I visited.

No, there was no other solution that we have tried.

I did not use a different solution. After researching my needs, I found a post guiding the simple home lab test use, and it was good enough. I've tested it, loved it, and never looked back.

In most instances, I have used a regular vSphere running a SAN and multiple compute hosts. I haven't precisely switched. I'd say that you need to provide the right solution for the end client, and in smaller installs, specifically, the efficiency gains in space and cost of the StarWind Virtual SAN can be hard to beat.

We used to use Netapp and switched due to the cost and reliability.

We used HP Lefthand/StorVirtual, which was end-of-life. 

I had looked at other vSAN technology in the past, however, the cost was beyond our budget, especially after factoring in the cost of the support needed, since I am not a storage engineer.

In parallel, the use of EMC ScaleIO. Unlike StarWind VSA, the license price depends on the amount of storage and only one copy of the data is used.

We migrated from HPE StoreVirtual.

We did not previously use a different solution.

We did not use another similar solution prior to this.

This is our first VSAN solution.

We did not use a different solution previously. Only the backup was done on local systems.

We did not previously use a different solution.

We previously used the standard SAN hardware solution from a big IT company - we switched to basically save on hardware costs and maintenance.

We did not use another similar solution prior to StarWind.

We did not use another similar solution prior to this one.

This is the first software-defined storage solution for us.

The solution offers good value for money.

Our previous one-size-fits-all SAN mindset often priced us out of successful sales with smaller companies.

No. We used standalone hosts.

We had three different systems (Dell PowerVault, HPE Lefthand, Lenovo NAS) and they were expensive to keep and more expensive to expand.

We switched products due to an expiring warranty as well as the need for a general hardware refresh. We were also looking for newer and better; we wanted to improve resiliency, improve server/application performance, reduce rack space utilization and wiring, and just get an all-around new solution since the IT market has changed quite a bit since our previous refresh (about 6 years prior).  Ultimately, the new StarWind solution reduces our single points of failure and improves our system performance.

I did not use another solution prior to this one.

I have not used another solution for the same purpose. This was what I picked based on my research.

Our SDS software before StarWind was a SAN. It wasn't converged storage. It was a full-blown, normal SAN configuration.

We switched to StarWind because we were upgrading everything all at one. We ran into budget constraints which would make building a new SAN almost impractical, if not impossible, to fit it into the budget. Secondarily, the SAN required a lot of maintenance, and we were looking for a less expensive solution. We also wanted something that would not require so much technician time.

Previously, we had two full-time people taking care of the SAN, cluster, etc. Now, we only have one. So, StarWind cut our technical labor force in half (cutting this cost in half), and we didn't lay anybody off. We were able to nicely redeploy resources.

I did not previously use a different solution. I was looking for some vSAN software for testing, and this fit the bill immediately.

We previously used DFS to synchronize between nodes; however, it did not provide nearly the same level of reliability and is not a true HA solution as a hyper-converged environment with StarWind vSAN.

We previously used Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct but had numerous reliability issues with the solution. It was definitely not ready for a production environment. 

We used Compellent (bought by Dell). When we bought it, they discounted it heavily to be competitive, and it was at the low end of what they offered. When we needed to expand it, the costs to do so seemed outrageous.

StarWind is our first hyper-converged solution.

Before StarWind we were still in a non-virtualized environment of standalone servers with disparate hardware.

We did not use a different solution beforehand.

We did not previously use a different solution.

We had an old standalone VMware server hosting several virtual machines that we wanted to replace with something highly available at a low cost. I researched and found StarWind Virtual SAN to be the best solution. We only had to purchase two new servers and no other storage or networking equipment. 

We did not use a different solution. We initially implemented our VMware vSphere Essentials solution using direct storage and didn't have access to features such as vMotion and high availability. The StarWind vSAN solution allowed us to implement shared storage and pave the way to migrate critical workloads onto the VMware infrastructure.

For this specific scenario, the customer hasn't considered the benefits of using this technology and it had not been a requirement.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

We previously used Microsoft Storage Spaces.

Not at this employer,  but my experience previously does include HP, Dell, EMC, and Nimble hardware-based SAN units.

This was our first installation.

We did not have a solution before StarWind. A consultant recommended this solution. We were also looking into physical solutions, not virtual.

Prior to adopting StarWind Virtual SAN, I had multiple Dell Equallogic SAN devices.  When it was time to replace the Equallogic with new hardware, the costs were unjustifiable after learning about and evaluating StarWind Virtual SAN.  

Previously, we used a Dell EMC SAN which was failing. 

I used the free version of StarWind VSAN initially. But when I had a problem, it was much more difficult to solve without a GUI.

No, I haven't used such solutions before.

Previously, we had to use Storage Spaces Direct or VMware vSAN for similar projects. Those two are worth mentioning, but they are more expensive and have a larger administrative footprint.  

We used direct-attached storage before StarWind vSAN.

We previously used Synology, which was going to EOL.

We didn't have another solution previously. This was our first vSAN experience.

No.

We had indeed tried a different solution, however, we opted for StarWind. Qnap did not have everything we needed at the moment.

We did not use a different solution previously.

We were using a single Dell EMC storage device. There was no software solution. We were looking to build out a DR site. We wanted to avoid having a single point of failure, like we did at our main location. If everything went well during our DR site rollout, we would configure a similar setup in our corporate location.

Before our StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) deployment, we had NetApp, IBM DS Series, and HP StorageWorks MSA1000 storage systems.

They have low performance and no replication (is very expensive).

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

I have never used different solutions.

We did not use a different solution previously. We switched from a system that did not offer high availability.

I've used SAN hardware before with no redundancy.

Prior to this solution, we used HPE MSA. We wanted easier tiering, better performance, and not to have everything on one "box".

There were no previous solutions in place. The setup of the VM Environment was mismanaged initially. This software helped me regain control of the management of storage quickly. 

Previously, we relied on our own resources. We wanted to work on this with the professionals, so we chose this solution.

We were using direct-attached for the primary servers and FreeNAS for the backups. We switched for the real-time replication and the failover.

We are using VMware vSAN on other solutions, and we are still using it, however, it is better to use VMware only as a hypervisor (obviously). Also, the hardware requirements are very costly to be compliant with, while using StarWind Virtual SAN there are no hardware or hypervisor requirements.

I did not use another solution prior to this one.

I have not used other solutions before.

We previously used Openfiler then moved to Open-E, and finally Starwind. I would highly recommend StarWind and have in many cases, including for our corporate HQ when we were acquired.

I did not use another solution prior to this one.

Before we implemented StarWind Virtual SAN, we used scripts and backup software. This was more of a temporary solution than a proper solution for a production environment.

Yes, we were using a non-clustered Hyper-V setup. The two main problems with that deployment that caused us to switch were:

• Single points of failure in both our virtualization and storage systems.
  The loss of one node in either system didn’t allow for seamless failover.
  

No other solution was used for data replication.

We did not have a previous solution. We went with it for virtualization, and we chose StarWind because it was a software-only solution and we could use off-the-shelf hardware. Everybody else that I looked at was basically selling appliances. They were just outside of our budget.

I used StarWind and VMware vSAN, but StarWind is 10x cheaper and gives us a solution independent from the hypervisor. This is more secure.

We used an HPE StoreVirtual VSA. Its support is ending and a replacement was going to cost too much for us.

We did not use a different solution before this one.

I switched from a Synology HA cluster after it had a split-brain situation and their tech support couldn't tell me why the issue occurred.