Nexenta vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

Nexenta by DDN and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Nexenta by DDN is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.0, while StarWind is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.6. Nexenta by DDN holds a 0.8% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 9.2% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of Nexenta by DDN users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Nexenta

Read 2 Nexenta reviews

115 Views
92 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual SAN

Read 189 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews

3,497 Views
1,254 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Nexenta

StarWind Virtual SAN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Nexenta and StarWind Virtual SAN compete in the software-defined storage market. StarWind Virtual SAN may have the upper hand due to its advanced features, making it a worthy investment despite higher costs.

Features: Nexenta offers robust data management capabilities concentrated on scalability and enterprise compatibility, alongside flexible deployment options. StarWind Virtual SAN provides advanced data protection, seamless integration, and focuses on high availability, making it suitable for businesses emphasizing reliability and manageability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nexenta allows flexible deployment with various hardware configurations, aiding in integration. It offers responsive customer service for efficient setup. StarWind Virtual SAN simplifies its installation process to minimize downtime and provides comprehensive support, highlighting its streamlined approach.

Pricing and ROI: Nexenta is known for being cost-effective, offering lower setup costs and satisfactory ROI. StarWind Virtual SAN requires a higher initial investment yet justifies the expense with a broad feature set and reliability, often delivering a substantial ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Nexenta

Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)

15th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind Virtual SAN

Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)

1st

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

189

Ranking in other categories

HCI (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Nexenta is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 9.2%, up from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Offers good features like Fusion and stable product with better customer service

Fusion is the only best feature, but it's a very good feature. Nexenta is a very old product. Nexenta is a well-established product used in the UK, US, India, Dubai, Qatar, and other countries. It is very good. The interface is up to date. Everything is up to date. The OS version was recently upgraded to 5.5 FP3. AI features: DataDirect Networks owns Nexenta and has won awards for AI. They continuously work on AI features. DDN also has a product called Tintri Infinia with AI features. And NVIDIA product also has AI features. I look forward to working on those products.

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Ahmed Hosni

Senior System Engineer at Giza Systems

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has a feature called Fusion that makes it more secure and productive."

"Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working."

"The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."

"The primary purpose of this software is to create a virtual SAN between local storage on Hyper-V hosts. I find this feature most valuable since it accomplishes this quite well."

"We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment."

"The vSAN provides full redundancy for storage while reclaiming some rack space."

"StarWind has provided us with a top-notch, well-supported, robust vSAN offering when other vendors have moved to hyper-converged solutions that are outside of our average clients' reach from a financial and resource perspective."

"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."

"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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

"There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved."

"I think the setup could be streamlined a bit."

"I would like an automated installation/configuration despite the fact that their service is very collaborative, a customer should be able to deploy the solution by themselves."

"I would like to see more advanced free versions."

"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."

"You have to do a "full" sync on write-back cache disks instead of a quick sync if there is an issue."

"Other vendors such as VMware vSAN have a bigger community of users, so it is easier to find more pre-sale or post-sale information from users."

"I'd prefer it if a remote console was provided."

"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."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."

"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"

"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."

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

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

"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."

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

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Nexenta?

There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved in the latest version. Four to five customers faced intermittent issues with the SMBs. So, it got resolved in version 5.5 FP3. In future releases,...

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What is your primary use case for Nexenta?

It's for file systems. It's a NAS solution, and it has flexibility. There shouldn't be any outages because if one node goes down, the other nodes take over and take care of everything. It has a fea...

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What advice do you have for others considering Nexenta?

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would recommend using it.

See all answers

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) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?

Choose StarWind Virtual SAN, it is the most flexible, reliable and cheap solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?

While using StarWind Virtual SAN so far, I have not found anything missing. It is true that we are using it in a very strict project in which we were looking for a solution that would satisfy a str...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 100% of the time

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Compared 27% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 19% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 7% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

December 2024

Download Nexenta product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

November 2024

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

StarWind SAN & NAS

Learn More

Nexenta by DDN

StarWind

Overview

Nexenta is the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage - what we call Open Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS).We uniquely integrate software-only "Open Source" collaboration with commodity hardware-centric "Software-Defined Storage" (SDS) innovation.

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

Sample Customers

GMO, Northern Backup, Cox Communications, University of Toronto, ScaleMatrix, Wipro, Ruhr University, Drillinginfo, George Washington University, Walton Electric, Faculty of Physics, NAU, ServerCentral

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

December 2024

Free Report: Nexenta vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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