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DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual Tape Library comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

DataCore SANsymphony
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
5th
Ranking in HCI
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Storage Software (2nd), Storage Performance (1st)
StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
23rd
Ranking in HCI
27th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 5.9%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 2.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DataCore SANsymphony5.9%
StarWind Virtual Tape Library2.2%
Other91.9%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

SigfridCecillon - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at Arsium
High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy
I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.
reviewer1414572 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
Flexible and reliable with helpful support
I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster. Who would not like things to be faster? It would be nice if StarWind could come up with a best practice document for configuration. I had to do some playing around in my environment with test runs to get the configuration that really allowed for the maximum amount of throughput that I was going to get with the software. Once I had figured out what worked best, the solution was rather fast for backing up 30+ TB of data

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"CDP is an important feature for avoiding data loss in the event of ransomware attacks. You need more storage capacity, however, you get the possibility to return at any time and use the data saved up to that point. The recovery is much faster than with a classic restore."
"The platform's most valuable feature is its synchronous mirroring capability, which ensures bit-identical copies of data and offers excellent failover capacity."
"DataCore's ability to seamlessly move virtual volume data between storage pools as well as their synchronous mirroring has made maintenance and disaster recovery planning achievable."
"It allows data to be available from two DataCore servers."
"The synchronous mirror allows us to operate a fully redundant storage solution that is distributed across two sites."
"The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are many counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress)."
"The use of the RAM cache allows you to speed up the writing and reading of data while also allowing for a possible increase in performance by increasing the RAM on the servers."
"I'd have to say that the biggest improvement gained by using SANsymphony has to be the performance of the product."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."
"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."
 

Cons

"I would like to see reporting added, such as a monthly connectivity report."
"I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem."
"I see some good competition to DataCore SANsymphony at the moment. I don't think DataCore SANsymphony is the best option on the market at the moment as they still could learn something from their competitors."
"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."
"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."
"Having an enterprise "Storage Dashboard" that can show capacity, usage, performance, and any issues would be very beneficial."
"The alert system could have more features."
"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."
"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution allows the use of off-the-shelf hardware and charges by the TB of storage."
"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."
"The cost is at the same level as other storage solutions and it is easy to understand the licensing."
"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."
"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."
"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."
"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."
"In my case, the licensing per terabytes is very high and it must be licensed for each extra functionality."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise22
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?
I am saying that the pricing is reasonable. It's not that expensive, and the product is also pretty stable. It's a good solution and the price is okay regarding the other products.
What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?
The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).
What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?
It's difficult to know how DataCore SANsymphony can be improved. I think DataCore SANsymphony could be deployed on Linux environments, which could be a great thing for clients. I would like to see ...
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Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.
Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
Find out what your peers are saying about DataCore SANsymphony vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.