StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Reviews

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. 

We needed a cost-effective and simple solution to replace our traditional SAN/server setup. 

Before StarWind, we were running a two-node cluster with a single SAN. Obviously, the storage was a single point of failure and we wanted to avoid this in our next solution.  

The StarWind deployment consisted of one two-node production environment and a second two-node test environment. With each of these two nodes, we accomplished full redundancy. Our production environment runs Hyper-V with 30 VMs and is used company-wide. Our test environment runs 15 VMs.

StarWind Virtual SAN has been a great product for us. The setup was easy to deploy, and management is simplified compared with traditional SAN solutions. Redundancy is achieved at a fraction of the cost when compared to other solutions. We opted for premier support which includes StarWind software support, OS support, Veeam support, patching, and OS updates. 

In addition, our environment is proactively monitored 24/7. We've had experience with other solutions such as NetApp and Dell SAN, however, StarWind was by far a better solution for us. 

The most important feature for us is the simplicity of the product. We are a small IT team and can't afford to spend much time managing and maintaining the servers/SAN.  

With our old traditional SAN, we had to manage servers and a complex SAN system that was connected to switches and then back to the servers. These three pieces made it very difficult to manage. We could not manage this on our own and had to pay third-party vendors to manage it for us. With StarWind, we do it all ourselves with the help of tech support.  

When reaching out to support by phone they do have a slight accent but are not too difficult to understand. 

An emphasis on security can be improved. For example, things like default passwords were not changed initially until requested. 

Veeam support was available, however, we often went to Veeam direct for slightly quicker answers. I can't really think of much else, however, if I had to split hairs I'd say that on reboots sometimes it takes a while to sync with the other node. The maximum was 30 minutes, however, 99% of the time it was three to four minutes.

We've been using StarWind Virtual SAN for about five years.

The stability was rock solid. We have never had any downtime. 

We don't have too much experience with scalability as we only had one site. 

Customer service is available 24/7 - which is great. They have more experience with the StarWind software than with other 3rd party software such as Veeam.  The language accent can be a slight issue as well, however, it's not too bad.  Other than that, they are very helpful and friendly.  

Positive

We had a traditional sever and SAN solution. It was very complicated to manage.

The initial setup was straightforward, however, it helps to have a good amount of experience for a smooth transition. Expert level is not required. That said, admin experience in a virtual environment is very helpful. 

We implemented the solution directly with StarWind. 

Overall, the pricing was great with StarWind. Other solutions were two to eight times more expensive. 

We evaluated other solutions such as Nutanix and the cloud (Azure). They were much more expensive.  

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 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.

Prior to Starwinds, we had two hosts in our production site and we would replicate VMs daily as part of our DR plan. In case one of the hosts failed, we had a copy of the VM on the other host.  

Now, we have "copies" on each host, at all times of the day, fully synchronized.  With ESXi and HCA, we can migrate resources as needed, and do maintenance as needed on any of our hosts.  

Each host's specs are enough that we could run everything on one without the users even knowing. We really have had no issues with this solution.

This has been great for our organization.  

We run probably 16 virtual machines, and all of them are now highly available, and highly redundant.  

Also, we no longer need to replicate across hosts on our production site. Doing that was a very clunky, very time-consuming way to do any restore, and it was only up-to-date as of that moment in time (when the snapshot was taken).  

With this solution, we can now do maintenance on our hosts during the day. The other day I "moved" all VMs to one host, took the other down, and did all its maintenance. That afternoon, I moved everything to the other host and did maintenance on the 2nd host - all without the users noticing.

One of the most valuable things we have seen so far is that we can have all of our VMs fully synchronized to another host at all times of the day in real-time. We no longer have to run replication jobs from one host to another (just in case one of the hosts dies, or is unavailable). Now, we can rest easy knowing that if one of our hosts goes down, the VM will run automatically on the other host. It is easy to move VMs around and to find the right fit for memory/CPU usage. That said, we can run all VMs from one host if/when needed.

The only thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation. I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers.

The solution does admittedly have many moving parts. I've found that it has been helpful to have the support is included and I have been able to get them to help with anything I have needed. That said, sometimes, the accent from the support technician is a little strong and hard to follow.

I've used the solution for eight months.

The solution is easy to fit to the size of your organization/network.

Customer support has been terrific and support has been very knowledgeable and timely. Sometimes, the accent has been hard to understand. Other times, it has been just fine.

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution.

It was very simple to set up, and the system came pre-configured.

I have not measured it in dollars, however, it is a high return on investment in terms of peace of mind and improved DR.

We looked at Dell EMC.

The StarWind HCA solution is used for our VMware virtualization environment in a two-host high-availability cluster to support critical business operations running 23 virtual machines/servers. 

I needed to have a setup that provides the highest level of performance due to a few critical virtualized servers and the highest level of redundancy in the situation where we will need to recover from any given incident affecting business operations. 

The solution provided by StarWind allows me to eventually migrate all my physical servers to the virtual environment, which is something I couldn't do with our older virtualized setup.

StarWind HCA has provided a much-needed upgrade to our aging VMware environment and infrastructure in terms of hardware, cost, and performance. 

All of our virtual machines, across the board, are snappy and running at peak performance. 

Due to the hardware, performance, and redundancy improvements provided by the StarWind two-node setup, we can take advantage of the setup and migrate critical physical servers to our virtual environment. 

Much to my surprise, while moving one of our critical systems from a physical server to a virtual server, users have commented that they have noticed a significant increase in performance on their end when using specific software. 

Also, the high-availability setup provides peace of mind in knowing that there is inherent redundancy provided in our configuration. 

The high-quality hardware options, directly affecting performance, have significantly improved the user experience and are well worth the cost. Granted, the solution was cost-effective and reasonable compared to other "brand-name" solutions out there. 

24/7 support has also been extremely valuable. We are located in Florida and since we migrated to the StarWind setup only a couple of months ago, I've already had to reach out to them outside of business hours to walk me through the shutdown of our systems thanks to two hurricanes. I needed assistance due to my unfamiliarity with the hardware and software, and they were happy to oblige. It was a smooth experience, and I appreciated their help.

The only area that surprised me had to do with the fact that each host runs a StarWind virtual machine used to maintain the health of the vSAN, which individually uses 24GB of memory per host. You should keep this in mind when determining the resources you will need when selecting hardware and components for your specific setup. If I knew that, I would have chosen to add more memory per host to make up for the use. I had configured my setup thinking I would have that much memory available to use to provision additional virtual machines.

I've used the solution for two months.

My experience so far is that it is very stable. Even after having to shut down and start up our entire facility twice due to hurricanes here in Florida, we haven't had any issues.

It looks like we have the option to scale up our solution to three, four, five, or however many nodes we would like. We may be going from a two-node to a three-node solution, so it's good to have these options.

Working with the support team has been great. Connecting with somebody during and after business hours has been smooth, and they have always been responsive and professional.

Positive

I did have a different solution. I switched mainly due to the performance, scalability, and costs associated with either maintaining or upgrading our setup.

The initial setup was very straightforward. Some areas were complex and involved StarWind support coming in and making sure everything was configured correctly. This service is included in the implementation of their solution.

The vendor team was great to work with and are experts in their field and on the StarWind solution. It was a pleasure working with them.

Keep in mind that StarWind VMs for the vSAN will take up 24GB of memory per host. If you do decide to go with StarWind, adjust your hardware configuration appropriately if you need those memory resources.

I evaluated Nutanix, HP, and Dell solutions.

I highly recommend the StarWind solution (high-performance tier). Making a decision after weeks of research, I have been pleasantly surprised and satisfied with my choice.

We have two Supermicro servers in a failover cluster, connected via a 25GB card for faster replication and virtual nic runs through 10GB interface. The disks are hybrid standard HDD and SSD for better performance. The Starwind solution auto replicated the servers and monitors if there are any issues. 

Both are running Hyper-V on Windows Server Datacentre 2019. Each server runs about 13 virtual servers and can run all virtual servers with room to spare. 

We also have an older Dell Starwind setup running Windows Server 2016. These just run standard HDD so are much slower than the Supermicro servers. 

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance has made the servers redundant, reducing downtime from just having a single standalone server with a much lower hardware cost than having an extra storage device which then reduces the redundancy unless purchasing much more hardware that increases the cost significantly. 

The added speed of using standard HDD and SSD meant we could increase what services are stored on the servers without having to have additional servers. 

Also, the servers' support reduces downtime when things go wrong. The support team has always ensured we are back up and running in a short amount of time.

It offers a simple setup. The servers come pre-configured and only require a small amount of setup. The support team is on hand to complete your installation and ensure everything is running smoothly.  

Remote support ensures someone is watching the servers, letting you know if a VM has lost connection or either host has had any issues so you can check the servers and work with StarWind to get the servers back up and running again smoothly. 

Easily expandable CSVs take only a few minutes to get increased.

The control center needs email notifications so any self-monitoring is easier. The control center looks really good and looks like it could be very valuable. However, at the moment, not having email notifications makes it less worth it.

Easier CSV creation would be ideal so there are fewer steps and a check so that if you have created one, it can check all settings within the StarWind software and the ISCSI are set up. 

We'd like an easier setup for Windows updates on the Hyper-V servers so you don't have to use a script to ensure auto-updating is done. 

I've used the solution for three years.

So far, we have had no problems with stability.

The scalability is good.

Support is always very helpful and willing to help.

Positive

The setup is fairly straightforward and issues were sorted quickly.

We implemented the solution in-house.

If you have a preferred hardware vendor, then wait for it to become available if out of stock. 

We did not evaluate other solutions.