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StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs VMware vSAN 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

StarWind Virtual Tape Library
Ranking in HCI
17th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (11th)
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 15.6%, down from 18.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

KellyVon Der Heyden - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalable solution with a good technical support team
We use the solution for data backups and ransomware protection The solution is compatible with cloud storage platforms, such as Amazon S3. Also, it efficiently reduces the storage cost for archiving. The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough. We have been…
Yves Sandfort - PeerSpot reviewer
Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources
Stability can be improved. Adding all these new features is nice, but we are now at the level where most of the features you need in production are there. The stability is not from a day-to-day operations perspective, but more from a supportability perspective, because currently some of the support scenarios require you to completely evacuate hosts or the complete cluster. That sometimes can be a stretch. This would clearly be an improvement if the support teams were given additional tools to make that easier. Upgradability could be a bit easier sometimes. We are now where vSAN can be updated without ESXi, but there is still enough dependency. So that would be good if that actually would be uncoupled even more. Dashboards are there, and we use vROps as well. So, we have all the beauty of capacity planning and everything over there. That's not really something where we need a lot of other things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
"Storage is expandable with no extra cost."
"The most valuable features are its performance, simplicity, and synchronicity with vSphere."
"The vSAN features we've found most helpful are live application migrations and storage policies. It has storage, policies, application, and DRS policies. Automation is there."
"The most valuable feature for our customers is vMotion. It allows them to shut down virtual machines and migrate them to others servers."
"It's easy to use."
"Technical support has been fantastic. We always get answers quickly whenever we call."
"While we haven't made major changes to our disaster recovery and business continuity processes yet, moving towards stretch vSAN across sites will simplify and expedite our DR processes in the future."
"Flexibility, growth, and expansion are probably the more important features for us. As our environment grows, the more users come on, the more VDI workstations that we need, we can easily expand either horizontally or vertically with the environment"
 

Cons

"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"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 main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"The ability to access SAN environments with fiber channels (or even NVMe) would be a good addition."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered some intelligent monitoring."
"Integration could be better."
"The UI could certainly be better. The inside into what's actually going on with vSAN would be nice to know."
"There's already a concern with VMware with ransomware and security issues. VMware could focus on improving security."
"Reporting currently depends on third party applications and that could be improved."
"We have encountered some challenges related to administrative tasks and licensing issues for the product."
"The interface is a little complicated, it could be simplified with more graphical gadgets. We have many servers, and the built-in functions, such as rate configuration, are a bit complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."
"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."
"It is expensive. It should be cheaper. It has a perpetual license as well as a subscription-based license, but they are moving towards subscription-based licenses."
"The cost of the solution is high and if it could be reduced the customers would be very happy."
"Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective."
"The product's price is not high. The tool is available at a normal price."
"VMware vSAN is a little bit expensive and we pay annually. We have an educational institute where we receive discount prices from VMware. We do receive a reasonable discount but it's still expensive."
"The product is quite expensive, regarding the open source solution."
"The licenses are very expensive. The renewal of licenses has extra costs attached to it."
"In comparison with other solutions, such as HP or Cisco, I find the solution to be quite pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
12%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
51%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

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 Tape Library?
The solution made our backups way more reliable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual Tape Library?
The pricing is surprisingly reasonable, and that includes the help to get it set up and running. They really want you to use their support get to get everything up and running.
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual Tape Library?
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...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
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Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.