StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Reviews

We were running out of storage on our on-prem servers, so originally the HCAs were brought in to combat that and relieve some of the load on the veteran machines. Our file servers, along with one of our file storage, have moved to the HCA. I have put our Exchange server on it and the backup of the domain controller is on it as well.

We are using the latest version. We just implemented the HCAs. We added clusters and have moved some of the old virtual machines onto these new HCAs.

To have someone looking at the alerts when the network, or at least when the HCAs go down, this means I don't have to keep checking the clusters and virtual machines to make sure everything is playing ball. It's peace of mind that I don't have to keep checking and administrating that. Eventually, I will have a lot more use from it. I'm right at the end of the setup stage, but I'm still allocating resources from these HCAs into the virtual servers. So, I have not gotten the full run out of these yet.

I have seen improvement in my system’s performance. Our Exchange servers are behaving a lot better. Our system is a lot quicker. We were having delays before, where emails were taking two to three minutes. That is a lot longer than you would expect. Now, sitting on its own allocated HCA, it is almost instant. Therefore, email service has improved. The original use for this was just to increase our storage capacity, which it has done very nicely. I suppose we won't have to look for storage now for a long time.

The support is the most valuable feature. The support has been amazing. It's around the clock. One of our hard disks accidentally ejected without me knowing or being onsite. They called and told me about it before I had a chance to see it myself.

It has helped to increase redundancy and failover capabilities. The cluster is there, so I now have four levels of failover. If one of my machines goes down, there are two pairs of redundancy machines, so it fails over onto the next one.

The most important virtual servers have gone onto these new HCA. This is automatic so if one of these goes down, then the cluster would just take over and allocate to the next one. Even if I'm offsite, which I am quite a bit, we're still up and running.

The only real flaw that I have seen so far is this hard drive that was accidentally ejected because when it was received and added back into the RAID. There was an error there. It was not added back into the RAID correctly, so I have an outstanding hard disk. Apparently, a guy just knocked it with his hand as he was in my office, so it was just a small eject. He said that he didn't crash into anything. That is the only thing that has reared its head. The support team was straight on it. I have people coming out this week to replace it because remotely they couldn't add it back into the RAID. I think maybe the HD got corrupted.

I have all the ports I need in the back. When you're sitting them next to each other for replication between HCAs, it's quick because it has these dedicated iDRAC cables in the back. However, this means I can't have them in separate locations. We could run it through the network to replicate the regular gigabyte Ethernet, but that would be quite slow, especially with the setup. I don't really know how you would change this because I've got a large site. My original on-prem server is quite far away just in case there is a fire (or whatever), so the other one could pick up the redundancy. Having them next to each other defeats the purpose slightly if there was damage localized here, because I would lose both of them at the same time.

We have been using it for about three months now.

We did not install it straightaway. We were waiting for a couple of bits, so it was a late install.

The stability is good. I have had no downtime nor issues. You don't have to maintain it.

The only time I heard from the actual support was when that hard drive went down. As that was caused by a physical thing on our end, I can't really say that was a stability issue.

I sort of overbought on the storage needed for what I thought we would need in the future. The scalability is there. One of the main reasons I went with StarWind is because we can just keep adding. Possibly, in the future, our other sites will get added as well to have one centralized system. Though, I've not asked them about the specifics of what that would entail. But its scalability is definitely there, and hopefully, we won't need it for a long time. We might though as we have used a lot more data than I thought we would use so far.

As it stands, this is the setup that we will be using for a while.

They are great at monitoring.

The Proactive Premium Support has helped to free up an employee, as I'm the only one here at this company. It's a big company with a few schools attached, and obviously, my time is critical. I probably would've been knocking my head a lot longer than necessary, but Boris knew what he was doing and jumped straight in. We had a couple of hiccups and he knew what he was doing every time.

Transfer time was a big time saver when we were migrating the data server, because it was huge. Originally, it was only hooked up to the one gigabyte per second Ethernet going to the domain switch, then back. Because that would have taken forever, support talked me through how to do this another way, step-by-step.

I'm not 100 percent that we have the Proactive Premium Support. I'm fairly certain that we have the Proactive Premium Support, but it could be that I've just been dealing with the standard support. In which case, it's amazing. If it's the Proactive Premium Support, then it's great as well. It's around the clock, very friendly, and informative. While I've only spoken to Boris, he never seems to sleep.

It fits into our racks very nicely. Before, we had a couple of data modules which were plugged in. They were huge, bulky, and heavy. They didn't fit in the racks. This is the replacement to those data modules. It was by looking for an alternative that I got turned onto StarWind in the first place. StarWind’s support system, along with the way it plays nicely with Hyper-V and the existing setup, makes it nice and tidy. I've had no overheating. The fans have been nice and quiet as well. The ventilation is on point.

My reseller, Softcat, tipped me onto this solution. I asked them for data storage plugins and this is what they suggested. They were the one that turned me onto StarWind.

It's exactly what I was after when I started looking for these type of appliances.

The setup of the actual hardware was straightforward. Adding it to the existing network was complex. It would have taken me maybe a week of work to get the end result, instead having my hand held through the whole process was invaluable. It saved me a lot of time.

There was lots of different sessions involved with the deployment. If you put them altogether, it took probably a day as we had to stop and break. I had to go do other things and Boris also had to do other things, so we did the deployment in bits. 

The implementation strategy was loose. As long as it was off hours, so I could switch a bunch of machines off, that was essentially it. As long as I had this approved from Boris, that was our strategy. I looked at what resources we needed on which virtual machines. Then, I made the decision on what to transfer over, moving the most important things over.

I had Boris (from StarWind) for the setup, and he was amazing. We have the Proactive Premium Support, since we paid extra to get it. I probably wouldn't have been able to set it up on my own to get it to play with our existing network and on-prem setup. The support guys were sending me photographs and explaining some of the basics that I probably should have known. They have been great.

Kudos to Boris. He has been great, supportive, friendly, and dedicated. 

I am the only person using and maintaining the solution.

It's not really in place of anything that would be costing us. We just had to upgrade because the storage was basically kaput. Savings-wise, I don't think it will save us any money, but it's not going to cost us anything more either.

We might see ROI from time saved. But I'm the only employee, so it'll probably take awhile to cover enough of my time to make that money up.

I was quite hesitant to buy these, and I don't know why. There is a bit of a start-up cost. Having never used HCAs before, I was reluctant to buy it. I would suggest that you jump in and do it, as I wish I hadn't wasted so much time.

We did look at other options, just not HCAs. We looked at static storage to plug straight in.

I spoke to Softcat about alternatives, but they said StarWind was getting glowing reviews from very similar networks across education. So, I felt that I would give them a try. Their presentation was really good, and they seem friendly and very knowledgeable. Essentially, that's what I needed - someone to help me move through the process since I hadn't added HCAs before.

Compared to other solutions out there, StarWind was cost-effective. For example, we would have had to buy at minimum as much as these HCAs cost us going forward, if not more. 

The biggest lesson that I learned was I should have started as 1st Line Support. There was a situation where our old network manager had to leave quite suddenly, and there were definitely holes in my knowledge. So, I learned quite a lot just through the setup, Boris talking me through different types of connections, and some Hyper-V stuff. I suppose that I also learned a lot about HCAs in general and how they fit into network clusters since I hadn't touched on clusters before.

I would rate it a 10 (out of 10). I'm very happy. It's exactly the solution I wanted to the problem, then extra on top.

We use the solution to host our development, test, and UAT environments internally. We're running multiple projects side by side. This allows us to quickly create new VMs for new projects, or clone from existing ones. 

We also utilize it for Infrastructure internal usage servers such as SIEM and Windows solutions. 

It is hosting Windows 2012, 2016, and 2019 servers as well as a couple of CentOS machines. 

Currently, we are running around 30 VMs easily. We have gradually increased RAM capacity over the years. Currently, we have two nodes in a cluster and approximately 5TB of disk space. 

The solution has easily deployed instances for multiple fast-paced projects. 

The brilliant synchronisation and migration processes allow for easy patching and upgrading, we have a cluster configured allowing us to upgrade nodes on the fly without downtime and without the need for work out of hours. 

The speed of moving VMs from node to node is fantastic. 

They provide superb monitoring, alerting and support which really helps in taking the burden off the small internal IT infrastructure team. 

The StarWind Hyperconverged Appliance really took us forward in terms of technology, delivery speeds, and management overheads.

The support is great. The guys in support are fantastic and the round the clock premium monitoring and alerting is brilliant. They are always on top of any alerts and quick to solve issues. Recommendations are well received for firmware and patching concerns. We also have the option of remote sessions and guided support. They are very helpful with any queries and pleasant to deal with, always responding in a very timely manner.  

The solution offers amazing availability. There are very few issues over the last few years. We have been running for years and have never had an outage with the HCA.  

We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance. An improved front end for managing capacity may be beneficial. 

I find it difficult to view which hosts are using the resource, and scaling the allocated resource is difficult from the management console. 

Some integrated tools for managing partitions and disk space would be very beneficial if possible. 

Integrated reporting tools for capacity and resource management would also be beneficial allowing us to quickly spot over-resourced hosts. 

We've used the solution for over five years. 

The stability is very good. There are no stability issues whatsoever.

The scalability is good. We have added more RAM over time. 

The technical support is very good as previously stated.

Positive

We previously used physical servers.

The initial setup is very straightforward. There are no issues at all. It is great working with the team.

We handled the setup in-house and worked directly in contact with StarWind. There were no issues. 

The product is very reasonable in pricing and licensing. The setup costs are worth it as the process was very smooth.

We looked at NetApp, VMware, and Nutanix as an alternative.

These are our core virtual servers for an equestrian center/resort. We host our domain controllers, print servers, Quickbooks, remote desktop servers, lock servers, PRTG, horse show management, and several other items on these servers. 

These servers support our daily operations and connections to users for the horse show staff, restaurants, marketing departments, administrative staff, and accounting department. We maintain our printer connects and many small clients that connect to our horse show database to help manage our show.

Having the HA ability to switch over in real-time is extremely important when running a horse show and restaurants. We can feel confident that if any issue arises with one server, we are instantly online with the next server and have not lost any data. With our horse show software, if any data was not copied over before the failure of the other device, we would have corrupted databases which would be extremely problematic during the horse show. Servers are sized appropriately with plenty of resources. 

Being able to upgrade machines and software during business operations just by switching nodes has been a huge improvement. We have had multiple servers to manage in the past, and any major updates would have to be after hours. This configuration makes it quick and easy to do Windows and software updates without any user being kicked out of applications or having to log back in. We don't have to schedule updates any longer for most products. We are super happy with the virtual environment and the support.

We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed. That being said, even though there are some steps to the process, each upgrade has gone well without any issues. It just takes some notes and processes to get comfortable with moving things around.

I've used the solution for two years.

The solution is very stable.

The product is very scalable.

Technical support has been top-shelf!

Positive

We used VMware on multiple servers previously. Our servers were aging and needed an HA situation in case of any failures.

The initial setup was super easy.

We implemented the solution both using their support and members of our team.

The ROI we receive is peace of mind.

The pricing was not the cheapest nor the most expensive. The pricing model is great for the product that you get.

We looked at a couple of options before selecting StarWind. The price point was in the middle of the road, and it was clear speaking with sales reps that this company had its ducks in a row.

It's a great solution and offers easy implementation.

We purchased two of these appliances to replace a three-node Hyper-V cluster on Dell blade servers/MXL blade switches with a VNXe3200 as storage. We were able to replace our entire M1000e enclosure and greatly simplified our (admittedly humble) infrastructure. Change from iSCSI over 1GB to local storage was also welcome. These two appliances now house 100% of our VMs and are a breeze to maintain. On-boarding was well supported. We were able to rack, configure, and start migrating Hyper-V VMs in less than a week. 

These appliances have been great for our Failover Cluster, combining storage, network, and compute resources in a single package. StarWind's Virtual SAN software replicates storage in the background, letting each node in the cluster use its own local storage instead of having to create an actual storage network. The ease between setting up the HCA appliances and my previous setup is significant, as is ongoing maintenance.

StarWind also offers ProActive Support that remotely monitors the appliances and automatically opens a ticket and initiates contact when a problem is discovered. As the only IT employee here, it's been pretty great.

It did not hurt that the price for the hardware and three years of support cost less than the disparate hardware the cluster used to run on. End users are also pleased with the noticeable performance increase from switching to local storage from 1GB ethernet.

Surprisingly, it's the support that's been most helpful. I'm a one-person IT department. I have monitoring in place, however, I need to sleep sometimes. There were issues with our backup software early on that resulted in VMs failing. I'm not going into detail as the issue was with the backup software, not the HCAs. 

I woke up to detailed emails that let me know what had happened, along with event logs and explanations about why it happened. Even though the issue was with the backup software, they were still invaluable in solving the issue.

CSVs require the storage to be configured through iSCSI, even though the storage is local. It imparts a small performance hit that's easily overshadowed by the performance increase from getting off 1GB ethernet.

The Virtual SAN setup also requires more actual storage than a traditional SAN. My two-node cluster means I need double the amount of physical storage before any RAID is taken into account. A two-node cluster with RAID 1 means one-quarter of the storage you purchase is available.

Even though the support was great, getting the same email three to four mornings a week with the same issue got a little disheartening. 

I've used the solution for just shy of one year.

I've had zero issues with the appliances with anything other than our backup software.

Edit: I've been asked to clarify this. I had an issue with our backup software that was 100% on them. The errors involved VSS and a CBT driver that needed reinstalling. It was a little annoying getting emails every morning from ProActive Support while I got it straightened out, but the issue was between Windows and my backup/DR solution. 

We're small and will likely not have to worry about any serious upscaling in the near future, however, it would be very simple to throw more appliances into the cluster should we need to.

They've always been knowledgeable and friendly.

Positive

We used Dell blade servers/switches with a VNXe3200 SAN. They worked fine, however, the few times something went wrong it made tracking down the issue more difficult. There were also no single administration tools that handled all three hardware systems.

On-boarding was heavily guided. Once racked, powered on, and joined to the domain, they helped with the rest.

We had the help of a vendor team, and they were very efficient. I was up and running quickly.

I have no idea. I'm here to work with technology, not accounting.

We provided our own Windows Server Datacenter licenses. We have a state contract and get them at a reduced rate. I'm sure our reseller would have been happy to include them on the quote as well, though. The software does have ongoing costs for maintenance/support.

We did not look at other options, really. These fit my needs perfectly and were affordable. Had I more time/resources at my disposal, I probably would have sought out other options. In this case, these appliances fit my needs. 

These appliances are probably the best hardware decision I've made in my decade employed here.

We are using the product primarily as the base and storage for our failover cluster on a Hyper-V Environment (Server 2012r2 - 2019). 

All 3 of the HCA are all flash variants and have a 10GB uplink to our network, sync between the nodes is 25/40GB. We have Microsoft SQL Servers, Active Directory, and file servers running across all 3 systems without any major issues so far. 

We have a VMWare ESXI with VCenter 6.7 on one of the HCA. In this scenario, the storage is inside a virtual machine and works without any performance issues. 

It is a safe, fast, and cost-effective storage system that improved our systems to have zero downtime. Before we used manual failover methods and systems by other vendors, that required switching master and slave roles which could result in a longer downtime. 

If a storage error occurred outside of our office hours, it could result in critical downtime and production needing to stop. Besides the business continuity, our performance levels have risen from the all-flash setup and active-active sync scenarios.

The straightforward management GUI and the compatibility catalog are great. You can add every StarWind system into one management GUI and have a complete overview of every system.

You can remotly manage new storage volumes and use the maintenance mode for moving your systems physically to other locations. 

You can practically add any NIC or RAM you want. The compatibility catalog is huge. We have a system with an Nvidia Tesla M60 and DDA which works great in combination with StarWind HCA. Also, we are mixing NICs from Intel, Mellanox, and Broadcom without any issues.

It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind. Further, it would be nice if you expand the storage of one target, the corresponding CSV would rise the capacity as well. This would lead to lesser missed or wrong configuration steps in the loopback configuration. They could program some checkups for the ISCSI configuration that the management GUI would do and could show you possible misconfiguration that someone evidently has done.

We've used the solution since 2016.

In all the years we've used the product, we have not had any major problems or issues with any StarWind systems. This reality speaks for itself.

You can scale the system very well. You always have the possibility to add another host to your HCA complex if you need more processing power.

We always used customer support on any new HCA setup. They do checkups and look over the configuration to make sure that everything runs flawlessly. We've used the support on two minor cases that were handled very, very well - even on holidays.

Positive

We did use something else beforehand. The previous solution could only do a master/slave switch if a failure occured and there was significant downtime. The architecture of this storage was active-passive, which resulted in some performance degradation by writing always to the second member.

If you are an experienced administrator, the setup is straightforward. Even if you have some difficulties in some parts, they have many guides and services that will support you.

We have implemented the software-only solution by ourselves. The HCA was implemented together with the StarWind support team.

Users should plan the needed space before ordering the whole system. It isn't impossible to expand the physical storage space later, however, it is a time and cost-intensive process.

We tested and used the software-only version of StarWind. We wanted to test the software and its behavior.

They offer a custom trial license for free. Everyone who is interested in storage systems should try the software out.

We use the StarWind HCA as the main solution for hosting all of our core VMs. 

We have about 20 Microsoft and Linux VMs that we are running on Hyper-V on the StarWind HCA. 

Our HCA is made up of two Dell servers running the StarWind VSAN software. The VMs that we have are mainly made up of general-purpose servers with a few other custom-use servers thrown in. 

We also use the HCA to host both of our domain controllers, although we don't have them in the cluster, they are still on the appliance. 

Having high availability has definitely improved the reliability of our infrastructure and made server maintenance much easier, which is a significant improvement for the organization. 

The low cost of this solution has also made a big difference in our budget, which has been very helpful. 

The reliability of the VSAN software has also been a big improvement in our infrastructure. 

The quality of support from StarWind has probably been the biggest improvement though as we went from having a relatively low level of support with our previous solution to having a truly top-tier support team at our disposal.

High availability with only two nodes has really been enormously valuable to us. Our infrastructure is relatively small and we really didn't need more than two nodes, however, for many reasons, we really needed to have high availability. Being able to accomplish that without extra hardware was huge. 

The ability to use whatever hypervisor that we wanted has also been very valuable to us. We were able to switch over to Hyper-V from VMWare and save on the licensing costs that we previously had with VMWare.

I really don't say this very much, however, I actually don't have many issues with this product. However, if I had to think of something, some people might not like the fact that a lot of the engineers tend to have relatively thick eastern European accents, and that might be an issue for some folks. 

If I had to pick something to add to the product, it would be nice if you could have more than one user account on their command center VM. It's not really a big deal, however, that would be a good addition.

I've used the solution for about six months.

It is extremely stable. I haven't had any issues at all. It's one of my favorite things about this solution.

It is extremely scalable.

Their customer service and support are top-notch. 

Positive

Our previous solution was very old and not really a good comparison. 

We switched due to the fact that the hardware needed to be refreshed and we needed high availability.

The initial setup was extremely easy and their support team was assisting through the whole process.

It was implemented through their support team and their level of expertise was extremely high.

We've seen an ROI of 100% to 150%

The setup cost and support contract was significantly cheaper with StarWind than with any of the other options that I evaluated.

We considered just buying new server hardware and staying with VMware. We also evaluated Scale and Nutanix.

I really can't recommend them enough. 

Their VSAN software is excellent. The ability to get a highly available setup with just two nodes is fantastic. Their support is top-notch, and from a cost perspective, they blew everybody else out of the water. Give them a call; you won't be sorry!

I'm a self-employed consultant and I'm currently an interim CTO at one of the largest flour companies in the Netherlands. Here, I have introduced the latest solution of StarWind, the hyperconverged hardware cluster. In the past, it was all software-based. But now I use their latest solution, including hardware.

The primary use case is all on-premise. An ERP system is running on it as are a VDI solution and a terminal server, and it is all based on a Hyper-V virtual environment. The complete IT infrastructure is running on the StarWind cluster. The company has about 200 employees.

Using the StarWind solution, I was able to consolidate all the servers, hardware and firmware, with a three-node StarWind cluster, based on Hyper-V. As a result, in this company, I have seen gains in I/O rates on the order of ten times what they were and a better performing environment.

Overall, the solution has definitely improved our system's performance. When I started with this firm last year in May, they really had a poor performing environment. The StarWind solution has made everything at least ten times faster.

The fact that it has helped increase the redundancy and failover capabilities is implicit. It's a hyperconverged solution. It's all-inclusive. It runs all the time and the technology takes care of failures. It works as it should.

The solution has also saved us money.

StarWind delivers what they promise. In this case, the client is a company working in the food sector and they don't have innovative demands. What I have implemented for them has already brought them ten years ahead of where they were.

The most valuable feature is the high-availability. We have three nodes, and all data will be synched instantly through all the nodes. Even if we had a disaster where two nodes failed, containing dozens of critical machines, almost automatically, all the loads would be run on the remaining node. So it features high-availability and provides business continuity. They are the most important elements for me.

It's also fine-tuned, so the performance is the second most valuable feature. It provides great performance. I've only seen I/O performance like this in solutions that are ten times more expensive than the StarWind solution. In the SMB market segment, you cannot sell Dell EMC-like solutions. Thus, StarWind would be the best solution with the best price for the performance that you receive.

I only have three nodes, so the footprint is very small, yet I can provide all the IT services that the company requires, including a very demanding ERP system. It would fit in a half-rack if you put everything in one place. But of course, it's high-availability, so you have to spread it between locations. But the footprint is really small.

In addition, we have full support from StarWind, 24/7. They know about issues in our environment before we know about them. They see, for instance, network errors before we do and what implementations we have. They send a message to us and our engineers respond with a local, physical check on what is happening. Although the environment of StarWind is great, the overall network environment of the company where I'm working is not so good. StarWind notices when there is something wrong in the network, an issue which might affect the performance or the availability of the StarWind solution. We instantly know whether our problem is in the network, before we actually know about it ourselves, by their sending us emails about the site being down or an error.

A past problem that they fixed was related to split-brain syndrome. 

The only thing that is lacking would be a fool-proof GUI for system administrators. 

At the moment, the initial configuration is very technical and error-prone. That is the reason StarWind does it for you as a service, which is a great thing. But it would be nice if we could change or rearrange storage assignments ourselves.

My history with StarWind goes way back to somewhere around 2008 or 2009 so it's been over ten years. When they first started introducing the so-called virtual SAN solution, I owned a cloud computing business. At that time I was looking for an affordable storage solution that was scalable and highly available. 

Later on, I moved towards an IT consultancy business where I was asked to solve a problem with an ERP system in one of the Dutch government agencies. Because I'm also an IT architect, I noticed that had a big challenge with I/O. So I designed a solution for them around StarWind, also based on a highly-available solution they offered. The application, before I provided my solution, had query response times of over 60 seconds, and some queries even ran for a couple of minutes. Using the StarWind solution, 80 percent of the transactions completed in less than two seconds. That really was a big performance gain from using the StarWind solution. That was about five years ago.

StarWind is almost infinitely scalable. It depends on the use case. You can scale it on-premise or you can scale it towards the cloud. And then you get the disaster-recovery option included because you can easily move the machines from on-premise to a StarWind solution in the cloud. But for my current client, the cloud is not an option, with all its manufacturing equipment in-house. You have to have the computer system close to the points of contact.

I praise them for their support and the willingness to always be available. I would rate their support at ten out of ten because they are the best. I have experience with a lot of other companies, like Dell EMC. StarWind goes much further than other companies, without asking for money for it. You can get similar support from Dell EMC or IBM or HPE if you are willing to pay big-time. Compared to all the others, they are really great.

A hyperconverged cluster had never been used at this company, but from a storage point of view, LeftHand was used. The company moved to StarWind because I advised it. I know StarWind, how it performs and how good it is. To me, there was no other option. I will always start with StarWind, for all clients I will service in the future. I know it's good, it performs well, and the price is right.

The initial setup is absolutely straightforward. Just open the box and follow the instructions, do the cabling, and you're set. And StarWind gives good implementation support. The moment it has been set up and is running, they will do a complete operational test. The moment they say, "Okay, the system is good to go," you're able to use it. It's a matter of one or two days.

The deployment plan for the company I'm currently at was to virtualize all the operating systems, to get rid of all the hardware and consolidate. They had outsourced their systems services. By putting it back on-premise and hiring two full-time equivalents, I saved 50 percent of my IT budget.

The pricing model is very straightforward. I always go for the maximum, enterprise-level. It includes all the services I need and availability guarantees. It's a turnkey solution. It's a whole package, including five-year support on everything.

There are not so many companies that offer hyperconverged solutions, the way StarWind does. HPE doesn't offer it. Dell EMC doesn't offer it, although they do offer a solution combined with Cisco. There is no real comparison, other than parties that are working together. The closest to this would be the Dell EMC/Cisco solution, and that is four or five times more expensive.

If I have to decide, if I can choose, I will never evaluate other options. I know the market. I have been in the IT business for over 35 years. I know what's good and I stick with what's good and I don't need to compare every other solution in the world.

I would advise you to let StarWind be in control. Let them guide you through the process. If you follow the procedure they offer you, it will be an easy implementation.

Overall, I have more than ten years' experience with StarWind. They are a trustworthy company and they are a very technical company, meaning that they like to solve all the issues. For instance, in all the projects that I have done with StarWind, when we did the implementation at any client or customer, they provided us with remote support and they didn't leave until everything worked as it was supposed to, and they did so without any additional financial implications. It all comes with within their service. I can only praise them for all they do, what they deliver, the service, technology, and performance. They do what they do and they're very good at it. It sounds too good to be true, but that has been my experience.

The product does do everything I expect, and at a high level, so I would also rate it a ten out of ten.

This is used for a two-node VMware Horizon View Cluster. This cluster supports our VMware Horizon View environment. We are a smaller environment supporting about 65-70 users. This disk is all SSD. We support a variety of users from typical office production staff to CAD, Adobe, and some light 3D work. So far the users have been pleased with the performance, even with Adobe products - which is saying something. 

We have a small on-site data center. All files and prints are on HP DL-380s with HP and Meraki networking. 

This was at a hardware refresh. I was replacing the old three-node cluster with a two-node cluster and going from discrete software/hardware to a Hyper-Converged Appliance. Obviously, the performance was outstanding, however, at a hardware refresh, it better be!

I have noticed a definite increase in performance all around. I would say we were most limited in our previous cluster by disk. There just is no comparison to SSD. 

Even with that said, the HCA screams. I've very satisfied. Install, setup and migrations were foolproof. I love that it's being monitored 24/7. I have previous experience with StarWind support and I know it is excellent. 

Having already been familiar with StarWind there really weren't any big surprises but SSD will always be faster than spinning disk of course. I do like that I can manage StarWind with a console running on my local desktop. There is not a lot of management that needs to be done but it's nice not having to go to the Windows server running StarWind, since it is all running on an "appliance" now. I also appreciated the way support walks you through all the startup and migration phases. I appreciated that they were always there to assist and instruct.

My only two cons are sort of minor and one definitely biased towards my taste in hardware vendors. The first "con" is that the hardware is Dell. I much prefer HP servers. I have had a much better experience with HP than with Dell. As I said that's just my preference. Since the hardware is a covered item I can't complain too much. I really don't have much to deal with.

Although the setup documentation was very complete and succinct, I found StarWind documentation to be a bit sparse. Not a lot of this is how this all works type of documentation. Not much on the way of reference. It is totally supported so I guess I can't complain too much. 

I have been using the HCA for four months but have been using StarWind for several years. 

StarWind from my experience is extremely stable. I have used the StarWind VSAN product for several years and other than self-inflicted issues it has been rock solid. I expect the HCA to be even more stable since it is all "in the box".  It has been the best storage solution I have used with VMware. I have used a variety of SANs previously. The whole virtualized SAN concept, I believe, is the smarter choice technology wise. With a smaller environment as we have, two node cluster, it makes more sense and is cheaper than VMware's VSAN product. 

It is highly scalable. Fortunately, we are on the lower-end side of scaling. 

They offer some of the best customer support I've ever had.

Positive

I used StarWind vSAN on my own hardware. I switched as it made more sense all the way around. It comes mostly set up and ready to go.

The setup was simple. They will set up your nodes ahead of time. Then, they walk you through the rest of the process.

I did the in-house part and they supported all the rest.

Our ROI is unknown.

I liked that there were no surprises. The costs were all conclusive and included everything that I needed, including migration assistance. 

I was already very satisfied with StarWind vSAN.

I thoroughly recommend this product. I wouldn't hesitate to chose it again.