Look at their HA appliances. The cost for these is competitive enough to our own hardware that we have begun to lean on these appliances as opposed to rolling and supporting our own.

Users should know that licensing can be reallocated as you retire old servers. I recommend always buying unlimited licenses as needed unless you think you can utilize their data center license.

The solution has given us the best results that I have ever seen in any environment.

The cost of this is less than you expect. Since they're selling a software stack, you do need to consider your own hardware costs.

Pricing is pretty fair and includes one year of support (as of purchase in August 2022).

The license is based on how many hosts you have and how much in TB you need the vSAN to accommodate.

The setup cost was included with the price - so that was great! Buy from them directly rather than going through a reseller and you get 20% off.

I have the Enterprise version, which has unlimited storage, and we have two nodes, or two servers where all the storage is replicated to each other. For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support. If you want higher tier support, that will cost a little more.

The product offers a very straightforward cost model versus its competitors.

The setup is simple and the cost is attractive.

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 pretty. Make sure they know what you have and what you want. Especially sizes. --This really only applies if you do the FREE method first.  

Through StarWind, in combination with HCI, we managed to reduce our overall hardware costs by about 50% through the avoidance of additional servers and software licensing. My recommendation is to utilize the community when setting up StarWind, which is a very good and strong point that speaks to StarWind and is also one of the main reasons we will stay with them.

If you email StarWind, they might give a discount on the licensing compared to what they list online. 

The Premium ProActive service price is a little high, yet worth the price.  

If you know your way around a cluster, setup is easy. Pricing is straightforward, which made this choice a no-brainer.

There is the "invisible" cost of you reading the docs, however, that comes with every solution. At least with StarWind, you have tech-to-tech documentation that you can actually use.

The pricing is very fair!

I'd advise new users to have sales walk them through all the options and also ask them about purchasing the hardware for you.

I'd advise others to perform a POC before purchase and check whether it meets a company's needs or not.

I'd advise new users to try the free version first.

The pricing can't be beaten. If StarWind is above a company's budget, they should contact them directly, and they may be able to assist with special pricing.  Licensing is based on TBs of data and the number of storage nodes.

I was intimidated at first about the setup, however, it is super easy.

This solution is of excellent value.

Pricing is very simple and a setup walkthrough is included in the price of the software. It's a perpetual license and you only pay to renew support, which was a reasonable price.

StarWind Virtual SAN is a reliable, scalable, and cost-effective solution. I highly recommend using this storage solution, especially for SMBs.

StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup.

It is advisable to conduct a detailed assessment of your infrastructure needs and compare setup costs, pricing, and licensing with alternatives in the market. Take into account scalability, technical support, and your specific environment requirements. Additionally, explore licensing options that best align with your budget and long-term planning. Evaluating your organization's needs and resources is crucial for making an informed decision regarding the investment in StarWind Virtual SAN.

StarWind vSAN has great value and is definitely worth the price.

StarWind has the most straightforward licensing model of any storage solution we evaluated. Their pricing was also the best.

While you can add nodes later on, I would suggest really putting thought into how many nodes you want to start with, as networking can get challenging if you omit a good 10+GB switch.

Try the free version and see if it meets your requirements. 

StarWind is by far going to be your best value for money.

The support package included the setup cost.

Try the free version first, as it's perfectly capable to be used and provides the same functionality (without the GUI) as the paid version. You can then simply upgrade. It does take a little bit of time to get used to managing it with the CLI, but once it's set up, it's a breeze.

Compared to other vendors in the shared storage space, Starwind is extremely price competitive and has a simple licensing model. I recommend it highly if you're on a budget.

The cost and licensing are very competitive.

StarWind is very reasonably priced.

I did not see any hidden costs. That said, everyone has to keep in mind that on the cloud, of course, the cost will be higher than using local storage.

If cost and performance are your goals, then definitely look at StarWind. It's a smaller company than almost all of the alternatives, yet they have very dedicated support staff and a great development team. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles as some others. However, if you're looking for a simple hyper-converged solution, this is your best bet.

The cost is honestly negligible for us.

The Star Wind Virtual SAN has a free/trial version that can be used for study and is suitable for simple solutions. The pricing for the paid versions is really worth it. When you need flexibility and reliability with good technical support, you are paying for what you get. 

The investment is really low compared to other options, and the stability and flexibility guarantee the security of the investment.

It's quite easy to deploy this product. 

Any IT professional can read a few documents and watch some videos and maybe go to Youtube to learn about deployment and management. It's a very simple and user-friendly product. 

We underestimated how many guest VMs we would have running on these hypervisors after three years, and would have bought more Windows licenses upfront.

Pricing is simple. You can buy a support package that gives you access to updates to the software or you can buy premium support, which expands the time in which you can get help from the company.

The pricing is very reasonable compared to a physical tape library.  

The price seems good to me compared to other tools that offer the same thing. That said, it's still worth seeing for yourself and looking at other tools before making a decision.

The setup costs depend on how many nodes you need.

One of the main reasons we went with StarWind was the pricing. It was cheaper for us to use our existing servers and install the Virtual SAN software and upgrade to SSDs than buy a brand new SAN server from other providers. 

We trialed the StarWind Virtual SAN software for a few weeks and quickly decided on the product.

The setup is the most cost-effective as a two or three-node cluster yet is still cost-effective in larger configurations.

I would advise users to contact StarWind directly since we have always found they support pre and post-sales and are amazingly knowledgeable.  

Do not waste any time on the free product; it's better to get a license. Use sales to evaluate and explore and you will be ready to implement a solid product.

Consider how much space you will need as pricing is per node and data.

The setup costs depend on your approach. I like to test everything, and as I do this, I learn. I like to implement everything, so the cost is time allocation in my case. In my company, this is a good investment. As for price and license, there is not much room for negotiation.

Do your comparison shopping, and if you are working on a small system trying to ensure redundancy, that will almost certainly bring you back to StarWind.

The initial cost included setup, and it was genuinely turnkey. It would be hard to find a lower-cost solution that offers what Starwind offers.

The cost isn't too good to be true. If you're able to use commodity hardware, it's worth a look. 

I'd advise users to do their due diligence, however, StarWind's technology works as advertised, at a much lower cost than the native VMware solution. Their licensing is simple and affordable, and their support is impeccable.

The cost of deployment is minimal, almost a product out of the box.

The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important.

its a good option compared with other vendors as licence is perpetual and wont charge every three years as HPE.

Licensing used to be good. However, the pricing may have gone up in recent months. 

The cost was ultimately low to implement, which allowed us to be 3-2-1 complaint.

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 it up, and everything worked, I was like, "Okay, I don't need anything else for this. Let's get the licensing and go."

The pricing is more than reasonable.

The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight. However, that is just one drive size upwards in an array. You are first going from two terabyte drives to four terabyte drives, then you will soon be going to eight terabyte drives and upwards, for SSDs which are coming out.

Therefore, it is weird that they have the middle tier in there, their pro tier. Then, they have their enterprise, which is unlimited. I can see their licensing better structured if their lower tier either had less drive space or the middle tier had more, by maybe a factor of four rather than doubling it. 

From a sales and marketing point of view, the difference between going from pro to unlimited is unclear. It seems like, "Why not just go unlimited? Why even have the middle tier there?"

They also offer a free trial version of the product with basic features. An organization should test the product before implementing it.

We found the licensing costs and pricing to be very affordable and manageable.

The initial setup cost will be great, especially with the new hardware. The StarWind pricing isn't that expensive compared to others, however, there are yearly maintenance costs to be aware of.

We found that the pricing was perfect; simple and clear.

This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost. 

Something to keep in mind is that you are not allowed to install security and bug fixes without active support agreement.

Licensing needs to consider future needs.

I'd advise future users to seriously consider the higher-level support packages. These can mean the difference between hours of downtime/angry bosses and a solution before you've even finished your coffee.

Evaluate your solutions. This is a great solution for those user Hyper-V and ready to hyper-converge.

I'd advise new users to just do some homework on what they need. Pick out hardware that can support it and get a license. The setup would be about 5 minutes.

The cost structure for us was on par with just a general server plus a SAN purchase, however, we would not have received the pre-configured software, the reduced single points of failure, the reduced wiring complexity, or the proactive support.  

I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN.

The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive.

For pricing, you have two things that come into it: 

1. The cost of the hardware.
2. The software licensing pricing. 

When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at. This wasn't our only criteria, as you don't want to buy the cheapest thing, then find out you have a problem. Also, StarWind isn't the cheapest solution out there, but it is certainly cost-effective relative to the major players. I haven't seen any difference in quality overall. StarWind works as well as any of the major players would have for us.

The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity. Going forward, we will probably pay for a license upgrade, then we can add more capacity. We just haven't done it yet.

I would start out by testing the product in the free edition. You get full functionality, and you can see how it will perform in your environment. If you're happy with it overall and want to use it in production, I would certainly pay for it for the UI aspects and the full support as well.

If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise. 

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 licensing is pretty simple, and the costs are straightforward. Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs.

The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available. 

Use the trial version before buying. Contact StarWind support in case of questions or issues. The support is very good.

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.

I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. 

Also, consider the paid version if you want the ease of management through the console GUI and not just use it for monitoring. 

You can also apply for a testing or NFR license if you want to test it. StarWind vSAN is, by list price, vastly more competitive than some comparable solutions. The setup may be straightforward, fast, and easy; however, it can break things down if not done properly. Before setup, be sure to procure proper hardware components that are not known to cause instabilities.

I'd recommend purchasing at least one year of support. It helps to have support on the initial configuration.

We found the StarWind vSAN solution was cost-effective compared to alternatives. You should talk to the vendor (or a good partner) about your needs because there are some differences in price based on your environment. We also recommend purchasing support.

In our case, we purchased StarWind vSAN for vSphere Essentials Edition which included 1 year of standard annual support and maintenance.

I'd advise users to go with StarWinds's design recommendations and utilize their technical support. It will help you get the best out of the product.

The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective.

I would strongly advise companies to engage with Starwind very early in the design process as they can help with finding the appropriate path. The pricing model is very simple.

The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out.

Make sure to look for the next package that they offer for the licensing part. Adding Drives will happen faster than you hope it will.

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 amount and took up physical space. 

The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running.

Communicate with StarWind, they will work with you and your team to size a solution that works for you.  

The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect.

This is a very good solution for small businesses.

The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions.

Setup is simple, so it's cheap.

Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing.

The product offers a super low cost of entry.

I tend to deal with the technical side more and stay away from the pricing.

I have not seen any other storage solution that delivers the features that StarWind does for anywhere near the price. Licensing and support costs are very simple and straightforward.  

The cost-benefit ratio is really well balanced.

I'd advise users to consider the scalability of the project as licensing can become a problem with competitors' products.

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.

It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable.

This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy.

I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it. If you like it then you will definitely like the more advanced, full paid version.

My advice is to use all the features of the service, including software updates and technical support.

No idea.

The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go.

The setup is pretty easy for any mid-senior administrator.

StarWind Virtual SAN is a cost-effective solution.

Support also is very good.

Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective.

The price is more affordable than other solutions. The product is excellent in value and benefit.

I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most.

There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost.

StarWind is best price/performance for SMB.

As a nonprofit with a limited budget, we are very satisfied with the licensing model provided by StarWind. The initial setup was quick and mostly effortless. Additionally, the support has been superb on the few occasions we've had to reach out to them.

This solution has a great price for the functionality.

Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward.

The version for vSphere is very cheap, and anyone interested should buy a three-node version for the test environment.

I think the cost of this solution is quite fair.

The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great.

The basic setup is very easy and the cost is reasonable for support. 

Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth.

StarWind was the least expensive option I considered. Their maintenance cost is reasonable.

We are happy with the price.