StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

We have used vSAN as an SDS storage solution with fiber channel JBOD chassis as hardware and integrated the SAN with HyperV to supply storage to VMs. 

The setup was required to expand our storage capabilities, and when looking for solutions, we wanted an SDS system for easier management of new disks and disk failures. 

Our system, therefore, consists of many disks with varying quality, which for us is the true benefit of vSAN since we now can trust different levels of degraded disks and still stay certain that we will not lose data.

We have been able to use more on-prem hardware to reduce cost and also use old disks that we do not trust enough for ordinary RAID or usage.

The storage system has been a great expansion of our capabilities to store large amounts of data since we previously relied on cloud storage which became exponentially more expensive as we expanded our data collection and our pipelines which required more virtual machines and hence more storage. 

With the web GUI available, it also became easier to monitor disk health instead of always logging in to the respective storage servers and checking status, which sometimes only was available during boot in raid controllers.

For us, the SAN solution needed to integrate well with HyperV since that is what we currently use - although we are planning to add an ESXi hypervisor which made vSAN optimal (since it is hypervisor-agnostic and we can select whatever hypervisor we want in the future without the need to redo our storage system).

Furthermore, we have a lot of fiber channel disks lying around, which we had no good use of. Therefore vSAN was great since we could easily integrate these into our storage system and also distribute block storage via fiber channel to the hypervisors and other storage-requiring servers.

The setup and documentation for the installation with the free version could definitely be improved. It took some time to get it up and running; however, when running, it worked well. 

The setup is done in PowerShell and requires quite some knowledge about how to navigate windows through Powershell. Fortunately, there were scripts available to help out. That said, the documentation was not that thorough in helping me understand the scripts. This is definitely room for improvement since it would be nice to quickly get up a demo of the SAN running to evaluate if it works as one expects, which it did in our case.

I've used the solution for two months.

The scalability is great. It integrates with all hypervisors, and disks can easily be added.

It was far from the easiest implementation; however, we got it working.

We implemented the solution in-house.

We looked into TrueNAS and Windows storage spaces.

In our remote offices, we have two servers on VMware. With no HA for the 10 VMs, StarWind VSAN came to use to address this need. As I had previous experience with it and truly believed that this was the best option, I set up our first remote site and used it for three months on a test. I used that time to gather information on my company's use and tested fail-over, replication, and sync. I was concerned about network usage for replication in my company due to the volume of VMs and data modification needed to replicate; it turns out it was never an issue.

It provided the much-needed HA on an extremely low budget. 

There was always a need to have HA in our remote offices. However, it was never addressed due to a lack of budget. For a time, we experienced faults due to failing hardware, and, finally, when the budget allowed, we started using StarWind vSAN and never experienced outages again. 

As we adopted StarWind vSAN we also replaced some hardware that was the root cause of our problems. Nevertheless, StarWind vSAN provided me the certainty of reliability and much-needed tranquility to sleep again.

The reliability is the most valuable aspect of the solution. It does not need constant babysitting as it is stable as you need it to be. In our company, the team is small, and we do not have the time to keep checking everything all the time. As unadvised as it is, I simply do not have time to always monitor and check. With this product, I have gone months without even accessing the management console. Support is also reliable, and it is necessary to know you can trust it! I've not used it much; however, the few times that I did, it provided me with the help and guidance I needed.

The documentation can be better for the free tier. I've learned that in my home lab. To be fair, I cannot imagine anyone that will use this without performing several tests beforehand. Overall, documentation can be more explanatory and straightforward. That said, it is not bad, it just can be better.

I honestly like that the product is simple and does the job well; for the next release, I hope they keep it that way.

I've used the solution for several years now. I've started using the free edition on my home lab and never let it go. I still use it today at home. I'm decommissioning at my company as we are removing the servers of our remote offices.

I did not use a different solution. After researching my needs, I found a post guiding the simple home lab test use, and it was good enough. I've tested it, loved it, and never looked back.

The setup costs depend on your approach. I like to test everything, and as I do this, I learn. I like to implement everything, so the cost is time allocation in my case. In my company, this is a good investment. As for price and license, there is not much room for negotiation.

I did not evaluate other options. 

Go for it; it is awesome.

Our company needed a Virtual SAN solution that would fit perfectly into our private cloud architecture based on Windows Server virtualization (Windows Server 2016/2019/2022) and Hyper-V without having to substantially modify its composition. In this case, it has allowed us to provide storage with geographic clusters for the evacuation of resources in the event of a disaster, allowing data to be migrated between the different delegations and guaranteeing that we comply with current regulations regarding data protection, as well as ISO 27001 and ISO 22301.

The StarWind Virtual SAN product has allowed us to improve the availability of our services, as well as their security. On the other hand, it has allowed us to make these improvements without having to make a large increase in investment, as could have happened with solutions such as those from VMWARE, Dell, etc. In this way, we have also achieved clear profitability and an immediate return on investment (ROI). Of course, it has allowed us to align with the business continuity management strategy using geographic clusters for the evacuation of resources.

The StarWind support team is, without a doubt, the best part of this product. The engineer assigned to us for the implementation showed great involvement and a willingness to work and share his knowledge with our team, which was great and smoothed out the resistance to change as well as the learning curve. The support team is available to solve any problem efficiently. The team is always aligned with our needs, and they try to give maximum performance to the vSAN. So far, the solution has shown great stability with no noticeable issues. The ease of use has helped our juniors.

The only point they should improve is the amount of documentation available for the user, especially in the first preliminary phase in which we were testing the product on our own. This problem is really solved when the team of engineers is assigned to the project since, with the willingness of the support team to provide information when required, it is very easy to move forward and solve these deficiencies. On the other hand, perhaps it can be said that it would be interesting to publish a greater number of pre-generated scripts.

I've used the solution for three years.

So far, we haven't had a noteworthy problem to attribute to the solution. We only had initial problems due to the operation error of the junior technicians while they were learning to use the tool.

The scalability for us is perfect. The solution allows us to work elastically, responding to changes in the requirements of our infrastructure according to demand. In addition, it scales easily and quickly.

In my experience of over 20 years in the IT industry, I've noticed that they provide one of the best services available today. They are very involved and proactive technicians.

Positive

We evaluated other solutions, however, it is the first one that we implemented.

In terms of the initial complexity, it would come from the previous tests in which we did not have support or all the documentation. As soon as we contracted the software and had support, everything was easy, and we had an engineer that was really valuable.

The experience of the team that collaborated with us in the deployment is undoubtedly very high. The desire to work and the availability to share knowledge are points that, without a doubt, must be valued very positively.

Replacing the previous model with a vSAN model has allowed us significant cost savings. Even if we consider the license, it will not cost much to amortize the investment.

The investment is really low compared to other options, and the stability and flexibility guarantee the security of the investment.

We looked into VMware, Hyper-V, and some other options.

The solution is really easy to implement, manage and maintain.

I used the software as a virtual SAN solution. When I tried it for the first time, I found it easy to use and working perfectly. The most important thing is that the vendor keeps developing and enhancing the solution to include more robust features.

I have three servers running VMware ESXi and used the solution as a SAN for the VMware Cluster by connecting the servers as ISCSI targets to the StarWind vSAN using a 1GB network connection peer. That helped me to run my application with peace of mind.

I am currently running servers with a hosted application for my business, and I had a problem having them online all the time thanks to of server maintenance and updates. 

That's why I used a vSAN to avoid buying a hardware SAN and use my existing servers only. The software improved my productivity by allowing me to have high availability and fault tolerance in virtualization.

I plan to invest in NVME disks where the software provides perfect integration to speed up the systems and get cache capabilities.

We like the ease of management. The management was very easy and I was able to find all that I need in the software dashboard.

The ISCSI is good. The connection using software made it easy to me to connect my servers without extra investment in hardware SAN.

I like the vCenter plugin. This allows me to monitor the SAN performance in the VMware web interface.

It offers good fault tolerance and high availability. I can update or restart the physical server without worry.

It's got great deduplication and compression. I am planning to use this feature when investing in new NVme disks.

They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor. Also, they need to provide how-to videos on social video networks about the setup, upgrades, and migration from real hardware like HPE, DellEMC, or Fujitsu to vSAN solutions.

They need to make it easy for the customers to find a solution for any error happening during migration or setup. That way, it will be more accurate and have fewer errors.

We've used the solution for ten years up until now.

We use the solution in order to share storage across multiple virtual server hosts. We are currently running VMWare ESXi with vCenter across two locations and with a total of 8 ESXi Hosts. 

We use a storage server with a 30 TB RAID10 Array which is being shared out across all servers. We are using a mixture of Dell R730XDs, and Dell VRTX with M620 Blades, all across a 10GB server backbone and a 1GB End user network. The two locations are 20 miles apart, linked by an MPLS provided by AT&T. 

We currently use Synology for our backup appliance.

Before implementing StarWind Virtual SAN, we would have to copy over every single virtual hard drive file before we could migrate and VM. With Virtual SAN, though, we can use a shared Storage volume and rarely have to move files. This has allowed us to expand our virtual server host threefold and allows us to have a more robust disaster recovery plan. I am now able to do Migrations during the work day which has saved me from having to do things like this overnight. I could not be happier with my shared storage solution.

I have found the graphical user interface to be the most useful thing about Virtual SAN. Most other shared storage utilities either do not have a graphical user interface or a poorly laid-out one. Every single wizard I have used in Virtual SAN is easy to follow, has clear labeling, and just makes sense. There is also an overabundance of documentation every step of the way if you run into any questions about the lingo or what this checkbox does. I could not be happier with my purchase and decision to use Virtual SAN.

This is a tricky question since I do not have many issues with StarWind's Virtual SAN product. Every step along the way, if I ever had any questions, there was either documentation to answer a question, or customer service was able to help quickly. 

There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online by users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa. Customer Service can take care of the issue though without any issues. That's about the only issue I can think of.

I've used the solution for two years.

I had one issue with the product, however, reinstalling solved the issue, and it was nothing crazy.

The product is all about scalability. I have no concerns about future company growth and this solution.

The few times I reached out to technical support, my issues were solved in minuets, not hours.

Positive

I did not use a different soltion. 

The setup wizards are amazing!

I did the implementation myself.

We witnessed an ROI in six months.

I was intimidated at first about the setup, however, it is super easy.

I did evaluate VMware vSAN.

I'd advise new users to give the free version a try to see if the product is right for them. That's what I did, and I am so happy with the solution.

A customer wanted to build a test environment for his VMware. However, he was running out of financial resources. 

I suggested this product (vSAN in particular), and he was quite happy with its features. Later, he decided to convert his test environment into production using the same StarWind products, and to date, he is a happy customer. 

After this success story, I have referred many of my customers to use this product; no complaints so far. 

Happy customers mean good business, and the company is progressing well, so I'm enjoying the benefits as well. 

StarWind vSAN is easy to deploy and administer. It's a user-friendly solution. We are integrators and deployed vSAN from StarWind with multiple clients and all are happy with its performance. 

Creating the new server and deploying it to be used by hypervisors over ISCSI is good. It is very easy to configure. 

I'd prefer it if a remote console was provided. That way, the customer doesn't have to log in to a specific server where the product is running. That could be very beneficial. 

I've been using the solution for four years.

I have deployed this product at multiple locations (for clients) and have had no complaints so far. It is a fully stable product. 

The scalability is relatively easy to manage on StarWind. When having real hardware, it's a bit complex to scale, yet way easier with StarWind than with other options.  

Customer service is easily available by email. I have not tried by phone. However, it's my understanding that they would be of great help if I reached out that way too.  

Positive

I have worked with NetApp, Lenovo, EMC, and some other brands as well for storage with VMware and Hyper V. 

StarWind is easy to manage as compared to these and is a cheap solution with very similar features. 

The initial setup is straightforward. Any IT professional can handle it after some studying and training from Youtube. 

After reading the help material and watching some Youtube videos, I deployed this product myself. 

A happy customer is the best ROI. I have many happy customers using StarWind. 

It's quite easy to deploy this product. 

Any IT professional can read a few documents and watch some videos and maybe go to Youtube to learn about deployment and management. It's a very simple and user-friendly product. 

I purchased a StarWind Hyper-Converged Appliance from StarWind in order to fulfill a multitude of needs for my end client. Chief among them was that the system would be a rather small installation. 

Compared to a traditional configuration using three Servers and a SAN, the StarWind HCA allowed me to provide the user with two Server boxes that could handle their redundancy requirements in a fraction of the space and with a significant cost reduction. 

The installation called for using a VMware vSphere that would house about a dozen VMs with redundancy for every component involved in the system. The reduced size of this installation also made it possible to install the HCA alongside the existing servers so that they could be removed at the client's leisure when they were comfortable with the new installation.

StarWind Virtual SAN, and specifically its implementation in their StarWind Hyper-Converged Appliance, gave us a competitive advantage in the bidding process. This is specifically true for smaller installations where the economies of scale of having a centralized SAN and compute-only boxes don't have a chance to kick in. 

In addition to the StarWind solution allowing you to save on the hardware by only requiring two boxes containing all components, it allows us to avoid the unfortunately expensive solution provided by VMware for their own virtual SAN solution.

The StarWind Virtual SAN provides a clever and unique solution to the Computing Split Brain problem. A split brain occurs when two machines in a redundancy scenario have lost their connection to each other yet have maintained connection to the clients. This causes both devices to think they are running as the master, and their configurations will drift apart from each other, making reintegration all but impossible. Instead of using a third client as a witness, they have solved this problem by creating a secondary heartbeat signal to be carried on an independent hardware NIC, thus solving the problem.

The only current drawback that I see for the configuration as it stands is that it can be a little complicated to configure compared to other, more traditional solutions. 

If it were up to me, I would focus on streamlining a vSphere appliance for configuring the virtual storage machines. 

I would also like them to invest time in reducing the complexity of the startup and shutdown procedure. Currently, it requires you to jump in and out of virtual environments placing storage components on or offline, and all steps must be done in their proper order, or you can create an issue. It seems to me that this could be integrated into an add-on for vSphere that could handle the details of the startup/shutdown procedure more gracefully and with less manual intervention.

We've used the solution for about two years.

I did not experience any stability issues

This solution has the ability to scale into very large systems. However, it really shines in the small to mid-size range.

Customer service gets back to you promptly and is highly knowledgeable.

Positive

In most instances, I have used a regular vSphere running a SAN and multiple compute hosts. I haven't precisely switched. I'd say that you need to provide the right solution for the end client, and in smaller installs, specifically, the efficiency gains in space and cost of the StarWind Virtual SAN can be hard to beat.

The initial setup for the StarWind Hyper-Converged Architecture I purchased was largely done either by StarWind or with their assistance. If I had to do the whole thing myself, it would have taken me quite some time based on the complexity. They do have good documentation and videos, so it would not have been an insurmountable task.

We mainly did an in-house implementation.

I didn't calculate ROI. I can only state that it was about 30% cheaper for the end client than the alternative.

Do your comparison shopping, and if you are working on a small system trying to ensure redundancy, that will almost certainly bring you back to StarWind.

For the application, I compared it to a regular vSphere SAN. However, I did not compare it to other Hyper-Converged solutions. At the time, it was pretty clear that they had a long track record and a good reputation which aided in deciding on them as a solution.

Before you deliver this to an end client, make absolutely sure that you provide adequate documentation about how to start up and shut down the system. That part can be a little bit tricky and requires you to do things in the proper order.

StarWind is used as our primary physical server with nine VMs. This serves different locations around the US. 

One application is shared using RDS where as before it was being shared using individual pcs for each remote user. This caused major issues with data integrity.

Also with the two-node environment, not only are we benefitting from the redundancy, we are able to load balance between the servers. This allowed us to bring our hosted ERP environment in house. 

The price was right. It is very hard to beat this system! 

We had a very dated infrastructure. One that had been a hodge-podge over many years with no clear direction or future needs planning. 

I was brought on board to correct this and give us some growing room in the future. As the business continues to grow at this time, redundancy/DR planning became a significant focus as well.

StarWind, with a low-cost two-node HCA system, was truly turnkey.

With the redundancy and efficiency of the software and servers, we are running better than ever, with room to grow.

The ease of use of the system overall. If you don't understand something or need any help at all, support is there. I cannot speak highly enough to the value the support team offers. They are very knowledgeable and willing to help. They work on your time, not theirs. I agree with some other reviews that they can be hard to understand at times, however, they are more than willing to make sure you understand. 

The redundancy is a big factor. As a very small IT department, that gives us the peace of mind needed as well as knowing that support is there to help me through any glitches.

Though I have learned some of the nuances with the upgrading of firmware/windows/etc., it would be nice to have a more efficient method of doing so. Though truthfully, it's not bad.

I have had to call support to help me through some of the updates, so I know they are done right.

A missed SSD update caused a few headaches. That said, thanks to support, no data loss occurred, and considering the issue, we had minimal downtime.

Overall, I find StarWind above par and am excited to see what they think of next.

I've used the solution for 1.5 years.

Support is nothing but stellar. The support staff is very knowledgeable and willing to help.

Positive

The initial setup is very straightforward.

We implemented it through a vendor team. The experience was extremely positive!

The initial cost included setup, and it was genuinely turnkey. It would be hard to find a lower-cost solution that offers what Starwind offers.