StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews
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Bryan Schuler
Real User
Network Administrator at MUM Industries
Jan 30 2019
What is most valuable?
* The control panel is nice. It gives you a lot of good feedback as to the status and health of the VSAN. * The synchronization is very nice. * I like its flexibility. It… more»How has it helped my organization?
It is more of a perceptual thing with the users. The system that we moved onto it is our ERP system, which handles everything. It handles our orders, workflow, and shop… more»What needs improvement?
For improvement, I would like to see how the software determines which networks to use for which purpose. It seems like the naming terminology changes a bit from here to… more»What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I was so impressed by what I saw, because at first, you set it up for free. I set it up for free to see how it worked, because I was losing nothing but time. After I set… more»If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
This is our first VSAN solution.What other advice do I have?
Go for it. Just set it up and follow the instructions. Start with the free version. Make a test bed and play around with it. Then, see how you like it and how it works… more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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… more»
Matthew Henson
Real User
Owner at Split Digital LLC
Jan 24 2019
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the ability to lose a node and not have my systems go down.How has it helped my organization?
Instead of having to maintain two completely separate systems: * The cluster where all the data processing is happening. * Maintaining the SAN clustering. Now, we can do… more»What needs improvement?
If there are domain controllers inside the cluster, there needs to be some sort of logic allowing them to boot independently so all the rest of the domain clients can gain… more»What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
For pricing, you have two things that come into it: * The cost of the hardware. * The software licensing pricing. When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was… more»If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
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… more»What other advice do I have?
We have plans to increase the usage in the future. As we need data processing capability, we will add more nodes. As we need more storage, we will obviously upgrade the… more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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… more»
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Richard Ojeleye
Real User
Deputy Director of Technology and Communications at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Jan 24 2019
What is most valuable?
The most attractive feature is, as a Virtual SAN, the data on one is copied to the data on the second. We have two in tandem. So, the data on one is the same as the data on the second one. If we need… more»How has it helped my organization?
I don't have to stay late at night. Prior to using this VSAN, if anything happened to a server, everything went down. We couldn't do anything, and that was a nightmare. There was even a time where all… more»What needs improvement?
Initially, when we first started, the sync was horrible. It would take about 13 hours. However, they have since then improved on it. It also depends on the pipe. We had a small pipe back then. So, we… more»What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is fine for the work that it does. I have had no issues. When we bought it three to four years ago for what we needed, it was literally cheaper than the alternative which was ten times the… more»If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
We did not have a solution before StarWind. A consultant recommended this solution. We were also looking into physical solutions, not virtual.What other advice do I have?
We are not using the Log-structured Write Cache feature nor are we using NVMe. We have not integrated this solution with server OS native management tools. We are just interested in business… more»MarkMgr
Real User
IT Manager at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees
Mar 13 2019
What is most valuable?
We just use it for the storage replication. We haven't really utilized any of the other StarWind functionality in it.How has it helped my organization?
It provides some fault-tolerance redundancy. Originally, we just had a single point of failure for storage. By having StarWind with a two-node device, we're able to… more»What needs improvement?
It would be helpful to have a little more insight into what kind of performance the VSAN cluster is utilizing; something that would be more proactive on our side, versus… more»What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable.If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
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… more»What other advice do I have?
Utilize the StarWind installation team to get you up and running. They do everything from start to finish and even make sure that your production workload is running… more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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… more»
Dan Reynolds
Real User
Director of IT at BLDD ARCHITECTS INC
Mar 19 2019
What is most valuable?
Performance, reliability, I love the management console (once I got used to it). It works and it works well. Maybe not exactly a feature but tech support is beyond great… more»How has it helped my organization?
* Very fast (replaced EMC SAN). Ultra reliable. I had many, many problems with one of the hosts (ended up being a motherboard) and I never lost a thing. Once you get used… more»What needs improvement?
* The documentation is sub-par. The pre-sales documentation and information is sub-par. * StarWind is not cheap. It is not hard to set up but not a cakewalk either. Having… more»What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Be very clear in what you want. I was misquoted what I needed and ended up having to go back to the boss two times. And was running crippled while doing that. It was not… more»If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
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… more»What other advice do I have?
I think StarWind is a serious contendender. Especially if you don't have the right VMware licenses. But even then - I'm running a 3 node cluster and don't need a separate… more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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.1 comment
FAFCO
User
Director of Technology at FAFCO, INC.
Jul 16 2018
What is most valuable?
Without question, the support. StarWind has been a valuable technology partner for us from the beginning. On the rare occasion when we have had a problem, or have simply… more»How has it helped my organization?
We were originally in a legacy environment of stand-alone servers. StarWind has allowed us to virtualize our environment without the huge expense of a dedicated SAN (the… more»What needs improvement?
Very few aspects of this solution need improvement. Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date, and it is always good to check with support to make sure that… more»What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Make sure that you understand what all of the pieces do and don't make the assumption that you can drop support once setup is complete.If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
Before StarWind we were still in a non-virtualized environment of standalone servers with disparate hardware.What other advice do I have?
Make sure that you understand your performance requirements clearly. Learn how to measure your performance needs in your existing environment BEFORE you shop, so that you… more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Yes, we looked at Nutanix and several traditional dedicated SANs.David Gardner
Real User
IT Administrator at Cygnus, inc.
Feb 03 2019
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable features is the way it sets up the virtual SAN, because we don't have to buy a separate appliance for storage. It uses the existing storage on the… more»How has it helped my organization?
We went down from eight discrete servers to two, so it's saving us money and electricity in cooling. It's definitely saving us a bunch of time as far as server maintenance… more»What needs improvement?
The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward.If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
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… more»What other advice do I have?
Definitely get a trial license. I'm pretty sure they still have a free version that you can download. Set it up in a sandbox and see if it makes sense for your… more»Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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.Real User
User
Jul 17 2019
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the ability to make new SANs on the fly. When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do… more»How has it helped my organization?
The storage space in the VMware environment I walked into was mismanaged and we needed immediate access to more storage. There was a Dell PowerVault that had plenty of space, and this software enabled… more»What needs improvement?
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. In my industry, having one hundred… more»If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?
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.What other advice do I have?
Their support team is terrific. I have only had to reach out to them on a couple of occasions. They responded quickly and helped me to get things resolved right away.Which other solutions did I evaluate?
The timeline to get the storage was extremely limited so I didn't have time to do evaluation testing.See 34 More StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews
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User Assessments By Topic About StarWind Virtual SAN
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind, DataCore, Microsoft and others in Software Defined Storage (SDS). Updated: October 2019.
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StarWind Virtual SAN Questions
What is StarWind Virtual SAN?
For SMB, ROBO, Cloud and Hosting providers, who look to cut down virtualization expenses, our solution is StarWind VSAN. It is software that eliminates any need in physical shared storage by basically “mirroring” internal hard disks and flash between hypervisor servers. There is less hardware to buy in general, consequently less money is spent on purchase and maintenance. The existing hardware is used with maximum efficiency, so there is no money wasted at all.
StarWind Virtual SAN targets those who already have servers, or are bound to a particular vendor list to buy from. In case there is a new virtualization infrastructure to be built from scratch, StarWind offers a much better way – StarWind HyperConverged Appliance. It is a turnkey solution complete with hardware and software, powered by StarWind Virtual SAN. Those who need to build and maintain virtualization infrastructure at little to no expense, may be interested in StarWind Virtual SAN Free.
StarWind Virtual SAN customers
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
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