StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

The product is for clients who require high availability of their servers, from file servers and domain controllers, through to line of business applications.

I've done installations of two-node HA clusters running Windows Server Hyper-V. With the HA cluster we then ran virtual machines, both Windows Desktop, Windows Server, CentOS and Ubuntu. We have installed on pysical servers with both DELL PowerEdge and HP Proliant server hardware (Windows clustering requires exact server hardware to be matched - so two-node DELL, and two-node HP).

As an MSP, stability is important for our clients. StarWind's virtual SAN solution has allowed us to have an always-on architecture allowing survivability of hardware failure. We install it for all clients who need high availability of their virtual servers on-premise.

Given the high availability of the server cluster, we were able to reduce separate physical servers onto one hyper-converged cluster - this saved in OPEX and CAPEX costs immediately, along with licensing costs of the Windows Server licenses.

We have multiple sites running StarWindws Virtual SAN, which have been running for years without any issue.

The thing that impressed me the most about the product is the technical support from the vendor. Everyone knows the benefit of high-availability clusters, but setting one up and reading the documentation is an enormous task in itself.

With StarWind Virtual SAN and the installation support, we have high-availability clusters running within a couple of hours. This has been repeated over and over on many customer sites, so they have their process perfected in this regard.

The documentation could be clearer in terms of explaining the installation, although I will make two comments on this.

The high availability of virtual SAN is by its very nature not a simple drop-in thing, so the documentation will understandably be complex.

Secondly, the installation process is completely guided and done remotely by StarWind certified installation engineers, who handle all aspects.

Given the above, the only thing I can really say needs improvement is that I am not keen on the pricing per storage tier model, however, understand this is a common model charged.

I've done multiple client installations over five years.

No, there was no other solution that we have tried.

Consider how much space you will need as pricing is per node and data.

No, we found the price point compelling, which led to immediately trying StarWinds versus traditional SAN costs from DELL and HP, etc.

Overall it has been a great product and company to work with for the past five years and many more to come.

We were looking for physical tape backups to protect against DR situations but were concerned about the fact that it would require the manual intervention of changing the tapes and sending them offsite as we could easily forget. 

Luckily, I came across  Starwind VTL which is the same as having a physical tape library without the hassle of changing tapes. 

The whole process is automated and we have the option of choosing between multiple cloud storage providers such as Amazon, Wasabi, Azure, etc. It's been six months and it has been working well without any issue with the jobs completed within 24 hours which meets our RTO. 

In regards to the cost, we ended up saving a few thousand dollars as well due to the high cost of the physical tape library.

With Starwind VTL, it eliminates the need to manually change and remove tapes and schedule them for offline pickup which users would not have the time to do.  It is also cost-effective as having a physical tape library would cost thousands of dollars. 

In addition, the virtual tapes can be uploaded to the object storage of your choice with object locking/governance which gives you an extra layer of protection.  

Furthermore, having virtual tapes locally and on the cloud provides an additional layer of protection in addition to our normal backups that are performed. 

The cloud replication feature is most valuable as it copies the local virtual tapes from our on-prem storage to object storage where we can set object locking and governance.  This is a great feature in case something happens to our on-prem storage. 

Also, since it's virtual tapes, there is no manual intervention of changing tapes and scheduling them to take them offsite which is another additional cost. The support team is also good as they were able to resolve the majority of issues during the initial implementation.

There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA.  

Also, there is no date/time column so you don't know which is the latest tape that has been uploaded to object storage.  

You also cannot search by tape name so you have to scroll through the tape list if you ever need to cross-reference.  

Another shortcoming is that the tapes do not remove from the list once they've been deleted via the retention policy so you would have to manually remove them.  

I've requested all of these in a feature request with their R&D so hopefully, they will be included in future releases.

We've been using this solution for over two years now.

We did not have a previous solution. This was an add-on solution to our existing backup solution.

The pricing is very reasonable compared to a physical tape library.  

We evaluated the physical tape library, however, it was too costly.

The initial setup will take time, however, their implementation team will assist all the way through.

We used Starwind to provide HA ISCSI storage to a Hyper-V Cluster for VM Storage. This was mounted through MPIO on Windows for both nodes, using data locality for high levels of speed and performance. 

The devices are connected via fiber over a 10-mile line, over an isolated subnet. This has been great, as we've been able to shut down an entire site and have the machines not notice any difference. This was done over our existing network, using an isolated VLAN to have traffic be in its own area with no other issues.  

Starwind made it easy to deploy fully redundant, highly available storage at a low cost. We were unable to find a solid replacement for our aging HP Lefthand solution, and Starwind stepped into that fantastically. 

Prior to this, based on a design issue, traffic for storage replication was served on the same network as ISCSI traffic. This had the expected issues you'd think, leading to bad performance. Starwind doesn't allow this by default, and as such forced our architect to realize the mistake and worked to get it set up better, with Starwind support. 

The support has been top-notch. The engineers you get are knowledgeable and are able to solve issues right out the gate, which is huge for us. We don't get finger-pointing between vendors with them either, as they own issues and take care of them from the beginning. The installation and setup were done with a dedicated engineer, who went through the system step by step and made sure our techs understood the process while getting a great setup out the gate. This was all handled via Zoom, which was a nice thing to not worry about it. 

It would be nice to see a new UI for the windows client, as it is not the easiest to find settings. However, we normally don't have to. 

I do see a lot of info about them now offering a VSAN-like software that is a Linux VM base for VMware. I'd like to see this same option available for Hyper-V, or at least make it more apparent the differences between the two. 

I would like to see more US-based resellers. Working directly with the company was fine, but we prefer to have local resellers available as needed. 

I've used the solution for two years.

It is as stable as the Windows OS it runs on. Take that as you will. 

It appears to scale horizontally well, as you're able to keep data locality present and it will allow you to pick which data is replicated or not. 

Support is easy to get a hold of, and usually first-call resolution. 

Positive

We used HP Lefthand/StorVirtual, which was end-of-life. 

IT was straightforward, as it was vendor-led and handheld through. They helped us every step of the way. 

The implementation was vendor-led, and they were highly available. 

The ROI we witnessed was within 7 months, due to hosting on our system. 

The cost isn't too good to be true. If you're able to use commodity hardware, it's worth a look. 

We looked at Truenas. 

Give it a shot. They may not be the biggest, however, they're able to play in the field. 

We are using VSAN in our private cloud environment to provide highly redundant CSVs to a Hyper-V Cluster. We are using a converged environment so we have two commodity grade servers setup as a highly available StarWind cluster, then we have numerous Hyper-V compute nodes which access CSVs from the StarWind cluster. 

We are able to use Veeam to backup and replicate the VM files from the CSV/cluster.

We use off the shelf 10 GbE SPF+ modules and off the shelf 10 GbE switches.  With MPIO, we were able to create a redundant network infrastructure to support our SAN network. 

We were previously using Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, but that product was unreliable and practically unsupported by Microsoft. We were able to leverage our previous hardware capital investment and converted our infrastructure to use StarWind VSAN. The migration process was simple, and afterwards, we had a highly reliable SAN system. 

We've always wanted to deploy a software-defined storage system, as proprietary SANs do not meet our requirements. They are expensive and very inflexible. StarWind has been excellent.

The highly available feature between two nodes works without any issues. We have practiced DR scenarios and our CSV/cluster has always stayed online. The software has the ability to "elect" a master after a failure of one or two nodes, then it will resync after that without issue.

The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete.

The ability to use off the shelf hardware (servers, RAID cards, SSDs, etc.) is also invaluable in terms of cost and flexibility. 

A duplication feature inside of a CSV would be very useful. I'm sure there are a lot of duplicated blocks on a CSV that have 75 VMs of Windows Server.

StarWind relies on the underlying OS to manage the "SAN files" whether that would be a RAID volume, software RAID (such as LVM), etc. It would be useful if StarWind could incorporate the actual physical drive management inside of the solution, similar to Storage Spaces Direct.

A web interface for management and StarWind SNMP MIBs would also be very useful.  

One year.

The solution is very stable.  We have tested storage network outages with failure of one or two nodes. The solution is able to stay online or repair itself with ease. 

The storage is as salable as your underlying storage. If you are using hardware RAID cards, then you are somewhat limited for expansion, etc. It is still much better than proprietary SANs. 

Support has been very good. I regularly schedule off hours support sessions and their team has never complained. 

We previously used Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct but had numerous reliability issues with the solution. It was definitely not ready for a production environment. 

Setup was somewhat complex, but StarWind works with you the entire way and handles nearly all of the setup. 

We worked directly with StarWind. The experience was excellent. 

Less than one year. 

The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment. 

We had thought about proprietary SANs, but those didn't fit our requirements for cost and flexibility. 

One of the biggest hydroelectric power plants in the world asked us to prepare a project using HA Virtualization for environmental weather monitoring. In this project, we used three hosts virtualized by VMWare ESXI+VCenter (Essential Plus License). However, one of the prerequisites was that it should be able to integrate with other preexisting virtualized systems that were deployed by other suppliers and use other hypervisors like HyperV or Proxmox. That is where StarWind Virtual SAN comes in. It is really flexible and reliable. We were able to assemble this pilot project using it, and it is in testing, so far, without failures or any malfunctions. It is really an excellent solution.

The flexibility of StarWind Virtual San allowed us to create a system that is integrated into pre-existing solutions and is also independent of VMware itself, making it more reliable and robust.  

It made the system much easier to operate, maintain and manage inside the data center alongside many other systems. It is very easy to migrate the entire virtual system to other hosts or other data centers safely. 

It is really a good solution when you need to be flexible and, at the same time, reliable in a critical system.

First of all, the flexibility and reliability are great. 

The ability to be managed by PowerShell scripts made the management of the system really easy and efficient. We're able to do remote operations or even some operations different from the standard ones (allowed by the GUI).

It also runs under a Windows OS, so it is able to be installed in any virtualized system, independent from the Hypervisor itself.

The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way. It also makes it very easy to deploy and configure. 

It has good documentation, and I did not need technical support once during the entire deployment.

It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery. I would also recommend an easier way to back up/restore and export the filesystem images.

Another feature that I would like to see implemented is a configurable email alert and report system. While it can be managed using Powershell, it would not be hard at all to configure reports using PowerShell scripts, it would be nice to have some additional features in the GUI.

I've used the solution for about two years.

It is really stable and reliable. It perfectly fits our solution with an active-active failover solution.

The free version is limited, so it is not so scalable. If you need more scalability, you have different license options from the paid versions and the cost is totally worth it.

I did not need any service and support as it is really well documented.

Positive

We also used VMware VSAN and Nutanix. The StarWind Virtual SAN seems to be more flexible and easier to manage in the case we were developing.

The initial setup took about ten days. This included the studying of the documentation, setup, testing, and commissioning. It is well-documented and really easy to operate.

We handled the initial setup in-house.

The Star Wind Virtual SAN has a free/trial version that can be used for study and is suitable for simple solutions. The pricing for the paid versions is really worth it. When you need flexibility and reliability with good technical support, you are paying for what you get. 

We also evaluated VMware vSAN.

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.

We have a four-host VMware environment with over one hundred and forty virtual servers that runs everything on our network except for backups and video storage. We are using Dell R730xd servers filled with a combination of hard drives and SSDs, as well as some PCIe storage for high-performance VMs.

We were able to create a much faster SAN with much more storage while saving a lot of money. It cost less to build an entire new SAN based on StarWind than to upgrade our old SAN. Now, when we want to expand, we can add storage in any way we want. This allows us to find the best prices without being tied to proprietary hardware.

The most valuable feature is the fact that the nodes are Active/Active, and allow us to do upgrades on any node without any downtime. This solution runs on standard hardware and allows us to use servers and storage that we already have, as well as non-proprietary hardware that doesn't cost a fortune.

The ability to manage the SAN with vSphere would be nice. It would also be of benefit to have more vSAN-like features, like not having to worry about creating multiple volumes. It would be nice if we could designate pools, or tiers, for storage of different speeds, and then assign rules to new VMs that would automatically place them into the proper pool.

We have found the software itself to be highly stable. It just works.

This solution seems highly scalable, with the only limitations being management after a certain point.

I had some issues, early on, that ended up being hardware issues on my end. The StarWind support people were more than willing to help me out with them, and this including jumping on remote sessions to figure things out whenever I needed help.

We used Compellent (bought by Dell). When we bought it, they discounted it heavily to be competitive, and it was at the low end of what they offered. When we needed to expand it, the costs to do so seemed outrageous.

This initial setup is extremely straightforward. You install the software and then create volumes, which then show up on an iSCSI scan. Nothing complex about it.

We performed the implementation in-house.

We were able to build an entirely new SAN with much greater performance and more capacity for less than the cost of just upgrading our previous SAN, so the ROI was immediate.

The licensing is pretty simple, and the costs are straightforward. Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs.

We looked at EMC and HP, but both were also much more expensive than a system we could build ourselves based on the StarWind software.

Unless you need a lot of special third-party integration with other systems, it is a great low-cost solution that gives you whatever level of performance you decide, based on your hardware.

StarWind VSAN is used as shared storage for our Hyper-V cluster. We have two nodes, HDDs in RAID 10. HPE ProLiant servers, Windows Server 2016.

Thanks to StarWind VSAN, we were able to move to a cluster from stand-alone hypervisors with DAS (Direct attached storage). Before VSAN, hypervisor configuration changes and updates resulted in VM outages. Now, downtime is dramatically reduced.

The ability to use existing hardware, with no need to purchase hardware appliances is the most valuable feature. 

The cluster configuration is time-consuming and tedious. StarWind's guide for a two-node cluster can be found at (https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/starwind-virtual-san-hyperconverged-2-node-scenario-with-hyper-v-server-2016) and it is a long document to work through. I am not sure if it is possible to make the confiugration process more streamlined on generic hardware. This only affects the cluster configuration, not it's production use. I am very satisfied with the StarWind features so far and not interested in additional ones.

The technical support is very good.

StarWind is our first hyper-converged solution.

The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available. 

Use the trial version before buying. Contact StarWind support in case of questions or issues. The support is very good.

Before choosing this solution we evaluated HPE SimpliVity, Scale Computing, and Dell EMC.

In my opinion, StarWind is a great solution for businesses with limited infrastructure budgets.