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Maxta Hyperconvergence Software vs Zadara comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Number of Reviews
187
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st), HCI (4th)
Maxta Hyperconvergence Soft...
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
HCI (35th)
Zadara
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (32nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (18th), Compute Service (14th), Public Cloud Storage Services (17th), File and Object Storage (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

HCI
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Hosni - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 24, 2024
Provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor
You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost-effective point. Having used Starwind Virtual SAN for many years both for clients and for internal systems, it has always done exactly what it set out to do. It provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor, but it is most effective with Hyper-V. It's simple and easy to use, The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation.
LC
Feb 20, 2020
Has the ability to have a single-pane-of-glass using the VMware interface but it needs better support
The product helped improve the way our organization functions starting with our hiring practices. We do not have to have a storage engineer or other engineering specialists. So, for example, I had a budget to get someone for a security engineer position of $120,000 a year. In the end, after talking to several local people in my industry, they just told me that security guys will come in and then somebody will offer them $5,000 more and they will just go where the money is. So I went with a third party called the Arctic Wolf Networks to do all my monitoring of my Office 365 environments, all of our servers, collect all the logs, and get all the services I needed from one source that would be consistent. This way, I can hire just general networking engineers and they can run everything. I do not have to have special employees and the benefits of that flexibility are pretty great. With the solution, you can swap out a drive for a larger capacity drive. You can lose a couple of drives and everything still runs. You can lose the server and it is self-healing and you can schedule maintenance around events. But I do not have to have staffing 24-hours a day because we do not have outages. That is probably the biggest thing. Meanwhile, in another part of the network that I am currently taking over from the global holding company, they have outages all the time. Sometimes it is due to a network failure or sometimes it is just poor engineering practices and standards. Over there we just set up to large servers and a couple of data centers using the VxRail system, which is like vSAN, so it is pretty similar stuff to our current setups but just uses other products.
Giovanni Mantelli - PeerSpot reviewer
May 17, 2022
Helpful support, simple initial setup, and easy configuration
We use services on Zadara for our customers in Brazil The most valuable features of Zadara are its visibility and simplicity to use. In the next release, there can be some improvements to the web console by adding more features because the console is simple. Additionally, the calculator could…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This has helped to improve the reliability of service and operation in all departments, without having to stop in case of emergency situations."
"Their support goes above and beyond with the integration of their software."
"The ability to host high availability storage between existing servers without additional hardware is a great benefit. This not only saves money but also reduces the complexity of the hardware configuration creating fewer points of failure."
"Support keeps track of alerts of the system and verifies with us if we need help to fix any issues. They have great and quick technical support."
"Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."
"I've had to open a few support cases over the years due to administrator errors, and the support received was top-notch."
"It has reduced our overall maintenance and overhead by having to only maintain physical boxes for one cluster instead of having to manage physical boxes for two clusters."
"The most valuable feature for us is having the ability to configure our local storage using a limited number of disks and using the StarWind VSAN software to keep the cluster nodes in perfect sync."
"The single-pane-of-glass VMware interface makes configuration and management easy so you do not need IT specialists."
"Being able to scale on demand, and being able to get out of our security operation center, and not having to purchase hardware upfront, has drastically reduced the overhead that was required to maintain our information. We have also gained additional capabilities in terms of speed of replicating that information."
"One of the most useful features is that they provide iSCSI as a service."
"The most valuable features of Zadara are its visibility and simplicity to use."
"The processing is much faster with this product."
"Zadara Storage Cloud having 24/7 management saves me support and engineering costs because the storage and computing are managed by a third-party. We are able to focus more attention on the customer, which is truly our core business. Even at 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM at night, someone will answer, which is important."
"It's very easy to expand and compared to other storage systems that we've used, it's a lot more expandable and a lot more flexible in how it's deployed."
"The most valuable feature of Zadara is its ease of use and safety. Overall the solution is a complete package, it has all the features needed."
"A nice feature is the immutable object storage, which can be used in conjunction with Veeam."
 

Cons

"I wish there was online support because email return takes a long time and a faster solution should be found."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
"Perhaps more reporting features on the utilization, usage, and performance of the configured high-availability images and underlying physical disks would be helpful."
"There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."
"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 the authority they need to come online."
"I had to buy upgraded support, which was not a problem, but it wasn't a prorated amount, so I paid for the support, the full upgrade, but I only got a couple of months out of it because it was only good until renewal time."
"Diagnostics information or alerts on the state of systems could also be implemented to give more visibility."
"It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings."
"A new company took over the product and now the support for Maxta has gone way downhill."
"Having iSCSI over the internet using a VPN, the IPSec tunnel is really the only thing that I find missing from this product."
"The management interface is more geared towards end-users rather than a service partner like ourselves, and there are improvements that can be made around that."
"Currently, when we do firmware upgrades, it sometimes causes issues and is not as nondisruptive as desired."
"Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market."
"In the next release, there can be some improvements to the web console by adding more features because the console is simple. Additionally, the calculator could improve."
"Cost-wise, because it's a pay-per-use model, it may ultimately end up costing us more in the long run than something we developed ourselves."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available. I would like to see more disclosure and information around what fixes or what enhancements are available within a patch, and help in coordinating and scheduling that. Right now, it's driven more by the customer in reaching out via a support ticket."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"The pricing is more than reasonable."
"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 is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."
Information not available
"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."
"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."
"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."
"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."
"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."
"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."
"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
No data available
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
If you are comfortable with the solution and you feel that you don't need support, you can begin with the free licenc...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limite...
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Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Information Not Available
Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: September 2024.
814,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.