StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Reviews

We are running the StarWind HyperConverged Appliances as our Hyper-V Cluster hosts. Our old solution was a three-node Hyper-V Cluster that hosted our VMs. We now have a two-node setup using StarWind HCAs that run/host our Hyper-V VMs in a similar Failover Cluster. This saves room in our Data-Centre and provides a modernized solution compared to what we used. The two hosts each have their own storage bays that host all the VMs and also use the StarWind software to store our VMs in CSVs, allowing us to have even more replication on top of the RAID-5 node runs.

StarWind's Appliance improved our organization by no longer having a single point of failure. Our previous solution had a separate storage bay where the StarWind HCAs each have their own bay that can hold all our VMs and run replication using the StarWind Software.

Our old solution only supported Gigabit connections, while the StarWind solution also supported 10GB. Each node runs two Mellanox interconnects and came with two 10GB ports for our usage. We now have two cables running from the nodes through to the rest of our network and have set up SET (Switch Independent Teaming) for our Hyper-V Cluster solution.

The most valuable thing I have found is the 24/7 Support. Their support team is extremely helpful, and they are pretty friendly and knowledgeable. They monitor your hardware and provide support when you migrate to the new service. 

During our migration, we have sent multiple requests for support and made changes that have caused the network connection to flap. Within minutes of the nodes flapping, we would have a new ticket open with StarWind with them requesting information about the downed Node(s) and asking us if we require any support on getting them back up. 

The team has benefited us and offered support and documentation for the migration and general inquiries about their Hardware/Software.

The only thing that can use improvement is the StarWind Management Console and Command Center.

The management console needs to be restarted each reboot, and you must manually reconnect to each node to see the status. If this could be an automated process or if it auto-connects when you start the program, that would be fantastic.

The Command Center is a great tool, but it stores the ISOs in one of the CSVs, meaning that each ISO uses a lot of storage space compared to one copy. Since each node runs RAID-5 and the two nodes are replicated using the StarWind software, we are essentially using over three times the storage. 

Also, it doesn't feel like the Command Center adds anything compared to using the OS's Hyper-V or Failover Cluster managers.

I've used the solution for about two months.

So far, we've not had a single live down situation.

The solution is very scalable. Only half the slots for both Memory and SSDs were used when we built our complete solution.

They have the best support I've experienced with any vendor I've worked with up until now. We're still only 2 months into using their hardware so we may see a change.

Positive

We did use another solution. We switched because our previous solution was getting to EOL and the new solution offered by that company was more expensive than StarWind for similar builds. StarWind could offer more for less money than the other vendors who wanted more for less.

HCAs came pre-configured and only required minimum input on our end to get up and running.

I discussed and negotiated directly with StarWind.

The staff at StarWind are willing to negotiate. They will take a look at your system diagnostics and make a recommendation, and they will also ask if you have any specific needs/wants on top of the requirements and build you a customizable solution. 

Once you are at the quote stage, they are willing to negotiate with you if you have another vendor offering you similar products for a lower price. This was one of the major reasons we went with StarWind, as they were very open about it and have been very helpful every step of the way. 

Their website support chat will connect you to your assigned sales rep if they are available, and that means the "support" agent is someone who knows your needs well.

We took a look at all the big vendors, including HPE, Dell, Lenovo, and IBM.

Make use of the support and staff at StarWind whenever you need it. They are extremely knowledgeable and friendly. They are staff that feels like they want you as a customer and want to keep you as a customer by offering you great support. For other companies, you must wait on call, whereas StarWind has 24/7 support, and they proectively reach out to you when they detect issues.

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.

We currently have it set up with VMware. We use StarWind as a two-node cluster and VMware to host all the servers. All the servers are Windows-based.  

We use two Lenovo servers with SSDs. We were able to move from three physical servers down to two with the StarWind setup. Also, we wanted a new setup with an easy way to expand.  

StarWind will allow us to expand with very little setup after our initial configuration. We also set up our servers with multiple 10GB NICs bonded together and were able to separate our traffic easily with the software.

Before StarWind, we used HP Lefthand.  

While HP lefthand did work, the price difference was a major. Once we started to use StarWind, we found it to be very reliable and fast.  

We are very happy with moving from HP Lefthand to StarWind. During the conversion of Lefthand to StarWind, we used the support and found it very helpful. They were very knowledgeable and easy to work with.  

We needed three servers for our setup when we were using HP lefthand.  With StarWind, we were able to downsize to only two.

One of the best features is how it just works. We had issues with our hardware on our servers; however, once we have the hardware issue fixed, the StarWind services would sync right up.

The documentation is also a plus. We were able to set it up via the documentation and only needed their support a handful of times.  When we needed help, support responded and followed up, verifying our setup was working correctly. We also used their knowledge base and found it very helpful also.

Not having to purchase specific hardware is a plus!

The user interface needs an update for the Windows client. I would prefer it if it was all web-based. This way, you do not have to manage an installation program on a server. If it was web-based, it would work on any platform.

With the new interface, maybe some more reporting features would be nice.  Also, some notifications would be helpful for issues coming about with the system.

We would like to be able to shrink volumes. We know we can increase volumes when we need it, however, shrinking would be helpful.

I've used the solution for five years.

Support is amazing. They are very friendly and helpful.

Positive

We used HP Lefthand. We moved to StarWind due to the price and found it had excellent support.

The solution is mostly straightforward, however, we had to have help a few times.  

We received assistance with the setup from the vendor team. They were very knowledgeable and took care of all issues.

Be ready to use support to get through a few steps; however, after the initial configuration, it should work great!

We did not evaluate any other solutions.

It's an amazing product.

We were running a Hyper-v failover cluster across five servers and six SAN nodes, however, this was becoming dated and we were looking for new hardware to replace this. 

We looked into a few hyper-converged solutions and Starwind ticked all the boxes and seemed excellent value for money. 

We are a retail company and were running various workloads including domain controllers, file servers, SQL Server, and app servers.

The main workload was MS Dynamics AX 2012 which ran across 13 VMs running various different components. This drastically improved performance.

We condensed an entire rack of servers/switches and SAN storage nodes down to 4U for two Dell R730xd's, we had more storage, and it was much faster all around. It improved all services running on the new cluster and took up less space and less energy.

Our ERP system performance improved for all users. Lengthy overnight batch jobs were suddenly completed much earlier and enabled us to re-shuffle a lot of tasks into a smaller time window.

We are also finding it easier to maintain two host servers rather than the previous five.

The stability of the system has been the most valuable part. I never have to do anything, it just runs and runs and runs.

We haven't had any problems with Starwind, but some of our VMs have had issues and the proactive support from Starwind meant they knew about the issues before I knew and they were on it straight away. 

When we needed to make some upgrades to the server I contacted Starwind to discuss the changes and they were very helpful and easy to contact. The support is probably better than I have used compared to any supplier.

I cannot think of any way to improve it. They recently added a web-based interface that runs on a small footprint VM. This has massively improved the visibility of system metrics and made interacting with the product much easier.

I honestly cannot think of anything else to be improved, as I rarely have to interact with the Starwind product. My main interaction is with the Microsoft Hyper-V failover cluster running on the Starwind kit and the VMs themselves, which never need any attention from me.

I've used the solution for four and a half years.

The solution is very stable and never has any issues.

The solution is easily scalable. We purchase new nodes or expand the existing nodes if you can, which we have done.

Customer service and support is the best I have experienced with any supplier.

Positive

We use HP servers and an HP Lefthand SAN, however, this was too slow to run our SQL workloads.

The solution was very straightforward and we felt fully supported by the Starwind team.

This product is well priced with very good value for money and the support team is great so the setup is no problem.

We looked at Dell EMC, Nutanix, Scale, and Nimble.

The StarWind HCA solution provided our company with a turnkey hyper-converged platform that strengthened our processing and storage capabilities by greatly expanding our RAM, processors, and flash-based storage.

It also enabled us to take advantage of VMware vMotion technology. This allows us to transfer a virtual machine from one host to the other without interrupting production, which is critical in our manufacturing plant.

I haven't had to make any software related changes since the solution was implemented.

By having multiple servers, we are able to perform maintenance on one server while the other is still operating. The speed of the flash drives helped with performance, and the support that StarWind offers is very professional and accommodating.

We had to engage with support several times during the migration as we made licensing changes, and moved virtual servers from the old host to the new ones. The response time was quick and although there was a bit of an accent, I had no trouble understanding as the work was being completed.

The presence of built-in storage saved the company from having to purchase a separate storage array and related network equipment. When we looked at the costs for a storage array, they were somewhat higher than the solution from StarWind.

Knowing that the virtual machines will continue running in the event of one of the servers failing provides peace of mind. Also, having support readily available in the event of a problem helps as well.

We were impressed by all of the redundancy built into the solution to protect it from failures.

My only concern was with the terms and conditions of the proactive support. Our legal department didn't accept them, so we weren't able to take advantage of it. Having the heartbeat monitor working would save some time, by getting issues resolved by support as soon as, or possibly even prior to them happening.

I would request that the terms and conditions be reviewed and made more acceptable to corporate security so that we could finally turn on the proactive support feature, as it is included with our support agreement.

We have been using the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance for six months.

There have been no issues with stability since the solution was implemented.

It seemed that we would be able to increase the scale as needed.

The support at StarWind was very knowledgeable and was able to resolve any issues on the current call.

Our previous solution was a single server and it was out of support.

Its initial setup was complex, but that is why we had support from StarWind look after it.

It was implemented mostly by StarWind in coordination with our in house team.

The setup cost was included in the support.

We considered solutions from Dell and Nutanix.

We are running a small Windows server farm with VMware, and we have chosen StarWind as our solution. It is a hyper-converged cluster connected with 25 GB. The servers themselves are located in different locations to increase security in case of failure. Also, the servers are connected to a server switch cluster to create additional protection. Only the standard servers were set up, such as the domain controller, file server, and app server. The backup strategy was implemented with Veeam and amounts to a synthetic full backup procedure located locally and performed on tape drives.

We had an old server infrastructure from two major vendors that ran without flaws yet were no longer state of the art and thus reached its limits in terms of memory and processor for large projects. 

In addition, the support for the servers was expiring, and we wanted a solution that would allow a live migration in real-time. After extensive research, we decided on StarWind. It has the advantages of a storage solution yet is priced much more attractively than the competition (when considering hardware in the premium range). 

We were looking for a solution that would allow live migration, however, we didn't want to spend a lot of money. We wanted an attractively priced system that offered all the advantages of a storage solution and not the disadvantages of having a highly available environment 365 days a year that would not allow any downtime. That's why we chose StarWind. It offered us a hyper-converged independent cluster with a complete package. A VM can be migrated directly in real-time in the event of a failure, and if a complete failure is imminent, a switch is made to the backup with 25 GB. 

There is not much that could be improved. StarWind was affected by the delivery problems typical for the market and could not be improved by different partners. 

What would have to be done urgently, however, is the adaptation of the hardware to the configuration. We could only decide on a model that was in the upper premium segment, although we only needed standard specifications. Therefore, we have a solution that is a bit too performant concerning our requirements. That said, this also allows us to try something out. The price was excellent, so we accepted it. 

We've used the solution since April 2022 as part of a project. 

The product runs wonderfully and has already gone through several failure tests.

Regarding the hardware, there are still delivery problems, however, the software can be attached to any backup or cloud solution.

I haven't had a chance to contact support yet; the consultation process through to implementation is great.

Positive

We switched due to the fact that our old infrastructure was in dire need of improvement and it was old.

The setup was done with the help of StarWind. There were a few things that needed to be considered and unfortunately were not communicated by StarWind.

The connection was made by StarWind and a partner of StarWind integrated the solution very well and very quickly.

StarWind is a good and cheap provider that sells high-quality products. That said,  you shouldn't always look for the cheapest price or the cheapest hardware. Sometimes you get a bargain in the higher segment.

We looked at other providers of a pure storage solution and purchased them with StarWind. We couldn't get anywhere close to StarWind in terms of price.

Absolutely compare the infrastructure. It should be modernized.

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 use the solution as a virtual file server and Active Directory domain controller for the corporate office and virtual development and technical support environments for our developers and technical support staff for the timesheet software we develop in-house at our corporate office. 

We have an office space of about 30 employees, a mix of corporate and company employees. We currently have two HCAs in a rack cabinet in our server room, and, with the HCAs, there are no network switches required to support the SAN.

The solution has provided our company with a fully redundant virtual environment at half the cost of a traditional SAN implementation. Previously, we had the traditional SAN environment of 2-3 virtual hosts, 2 SAN switches for iSCSI, and then one storage array/server (all Dell hardware). The problem was the single point of failure (SPoF) at the bottom, which was the one storage server. Due to the cost, we could only afford one storage server, however, this meant we had a completely fully redundant SAN solution at half the cost and rack space footprint.

The redundancy, lower rack space footprint (no switches are needed for the SAN), and ease of management are the most valuable aspects of the product. At the same time, the technical support staff has been one of the most knowledgeable that I have ever seen. I purchased the support package where StarWind Support will support every aspect of the HCA - the virtual hosts/hardware, StarWind Software, and VMware vSphere/ESXi server software. The ease of installation was a plus and it was very easy to understand the concepts of the HCAs and the StarWind software.

For our use case, I seriously can't think of anything missing. For us, it's a set it and forget it kind of use. For us it improves our redundancy issues and the maintenance of the HyperConverged Appliances is next to nothing. 

The only issue we have had was the issue of performance, however, that is only due to the fact that we purchased a mix of SSD and regular spindle drives and restoring databases was slow as it was trying to restore the database using the spindle drives. Next time around, we will purchase all SSD drives which will resolve the issue.

I've been using the solution for two and a half years.

In the 2.5 years we have had our HCAs, I have had not one issue with stability and it primarily just works right out of the box.

You can scale the HCAs by adding more CPUs, memory, network ports, and when needed, adding another node.

Customer service/support is outstanding. All the guys that I have spoken with were highly professional, friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. With the Support level I signed up for, I only have to contact StarWind support for any issues I have with the virtual host hardware, the StarWind software, or the VMware hypervisor.

Positive

We used the Dell Compellent and EqualLogics which are highly expensive, so much so that we could only afford just one storage server in each environment which made them single points of failure, with no redundancy of the storage systems.

The initial setup was easy and straightforward right out of the box with little help needed from StarWind Support. We were able to get it all up and running in two to five hours.

The implementation was handled in-house with just me, one person, with a little guidance from StarWind Support.

There is a cost-saving in regards to the hardware and implementation itself. The time saved in having to manage the software itself also provides an ROI.

The setup cost is minimum (and very easy) and the price is usually half the cost of traditional SAN implementations. Licensing only pertains to the hypervisor and server OS that the StarWind SAN software will reside on.

We looked at Nutanix, Dell Compellent, EqualLogic, VMware ReadyNodes, and Scale Computing.

For us, the StarWind HCAs almost works right out of the box and help me sleep at night knowing that we have a fully redundant SAN implementation.