StarWind Virtual SAN Overview
StarWind Virtual SAN is the #2 ranked solution in our list of top Software Defined Storage (SDS) tools. It is most often compared to VMware vSAN: StarWind Virtual SAN vs VMware vSAN
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 Buyer's Guide
Download the StarWind Virtual SAN Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: March 2021
StarWind Virtual SAN Customers
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
StarWind Virtual SAN Video
Pricing Advice
What users are saying about StarWind Virtual SAN pricing:
- "The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint."
- "The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."
- "The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment."
- "The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."
- "I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
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reviewer1495242
Systems Administrator at Daifuku America
Reasonably-priced, quick and helpful technical support, facilitates 3-2-1 backup compliance
What is our primary use case?
We have a failover Hyper-V cluster and a stand-alone Veeam server. We back up our VMs via Veeam. We wanted to get our backups 3-2-1 compliant with a backup to disk backup, a second backup to another medium that was a virtual tape in our case, and backups to the cloud. We had a second physical server with tons of storage, so we installed StarWind. We were able to create a VTL and have tons of virtual tapes. We utilized iSCSI and were able to get Veeam to use this VTL as a destination for tape backups In addition to Veeam being able to back up to tape now, we were also able to get the StarWind… more »Pros and Cons
- "A great feature is that I basically set it and forget it, as everything is automatic."
- "The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."
What other advice do I have?
After we purchased the software, we were able to contact support right away. I would suggest you take advantage of this, as they are quick to respond and got my software up and running literally within minutes.reviewer1465917
Corporate Technology Manager at MTE Logistix
Easy to set up and they have good support that is fast to resolve problems
What is our primary use case?
We decided to migrate our infrastructure from Terago Cloud to a Tier III datacenter. It was primordial for our company to have redundancy at every level. It was not an easy sell to make that move and I needed to prove to management that we could have a very secure environment. I needed to have a software that could create a fail over between my hosts that would work well with VMWare 7.0. After researching several company we made the decision to go with Starwind. Of course, once we had everything in place, we made a test failover. It failed. I went back to Starwind and this was fix within one… more »Pros and Cons
- "The fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."
- "I would like to see different levels of support offered."
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2021.
476,483 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1253973
Deputy Director at a government with 11-50 employees
High availability, fast recovery via synchronization, and uses standard ethernet switches for storage networking
What is our primary use case?
We have been using VMware vSphere as a fail-safe storage solution in a virtualization environment since 2009. Scaling options were initially two nodes. In industrial operation, there were solutions from three nodes. The storage is deployed on a 1Gb-10Gb ethernet network and HP servers with SAS and SSD drives. To increase performance, caching technologies based on RAID controller functions were used, and later StarWind L2 Cache functionality was used. In 2020, it is planned to deploy storage that is based on new technologies: Intel Optane memory (DCPMM storage), VMware Vsphere Enterprise Plus… more »Pros and Cons
- "When using new (warranty) servers, you can forget about the storage service for several years. The users will not even notice the failure of two servers out of three."
- "For the StarWind VSA vSphere solution, I would like to see a simpler and automated virtual machine installation process in terms of network settings."
What other advice do I have?
This is an optimal product for large fault-tolerant solutions.reviewer1145355
User
Create new SANs on demand, making the most efficient use of existing hardware
What is our primary use case?
I used their Virtual SAN software to add new SANs to my VMware environment. I began working for a company that had a Virtual Environment already in place and there was no documentation regarding the configuration of the system. The storage was not managed correctly and I had to find a way to make space with what hardware I had at the time.Pros and Cons
- "When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."
- "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."
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.reviewer1351425
CTO - Partner at SabreTech Consulting LLC
Ability to use off the shelf hardware is invaluable in terms of cost and flexibility
What is our primary use case?
We are using VSAN in our private cloud environment to provide highly redundant CSVs to a Hyper-V Cluster. We are using a converged environment so we have two commodity grade servers setup as a highly available StarWind cluster, then we have numerous Hyper-V compute nodes which access CSVs from the StarWind cluster. We are able to use Veeam to backup and replicate the VM files from the CSV/cluster. We use off the shelf 10 GbE SPF+ modules and off the shelf 10 GbE switches. With MPIO, we were able to create a redundant network infrastructure to support our SAN network.Pros and Cons
- "The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete."
- "StarWind relies on the underlying OS to manage the "SAN files" whether that would be a RAID volume, software RAID (such as LVM), etc. It would be useful if StarWind could incorporate the actual physical drive management inside of the solution, similar to Storage Spaces Direct."
TRAIANO ...
Technology Solutions, Support & Training at UNISONMEDIA Group, Inc.
Resilient with seamless failover, and the support is helpful
What is our primary use case?
We have Microsoft Hyper-V. StarWind is configured as a two-node cluster with a Windows environment. It is crucial for the Virtual Machines that give us the resiliency of Exchange, 4TB File Servers, Networking Services, Quickbooks Server, Terminal Servers, Virtualized Spam Protection, Active Directory Services, and a few others. We needed something that allows for better resiliency than the old way of doing things. We have seen other choices out there but this seemed to be the best one, given our budget and the hardware we wanted to use.Pros and Cons
- "Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working."
- "A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful."
What other advice do I have?
Mainly that the costs would be less expensive.reviewer1397937
Network Specialist at Nexans aeA
With basic knowledge you can use the GUI from the node to create partitions then, creating volumes on the management console and manage it
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is for physical to virtual environment migration, requiring a VSAN storage for a data center we had an old BLC 460 gen 6 blades with physical storage attached. If we had any issues with the hardware or operating system the downtime for production would be for hours, so we created a virtual data center with VMware vSphere and added 3 20TB storage on each host then created 3-node StarWind scenario being shared on all 3 hosts, and creating virtual machines on 3 hosts and now running on StarWind storage.Pros and Cons
- "PowerShell library is pretty good feature as I created with APC PowerChute a script to put volumes on maintenance mode then turning off the StarWind nodes together with the VM and Hosts when UPS reaches 15 percent, this way after a blackout or electrical problems when turning servers on again, there is no issues for syncing or data loss due to energy interrupts."
- "Android app for monitoring and receiving push notifications as alarms or monitoring I/O from any mobile device could be a good feature and nice to have as we are not always on our desk."
What other advice do I have?
By letting the support team do it next time, as based on their knowledge we have the correct configurations.See 31 more StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews
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