StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews

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.

We use StarWind for storage on our Hyper-V cluster. We started with their free offering in a test environment and found the performance and stability so attractive that we built a three node cluster using Dell 720s and ten gigabit copper ethernet. It has now been running continuously for four years with essentially zero downtime. As it approaches end-of-life we will be migrating to their managed appliances.

We were originally in a legacy environment of stand-alone servers. StarWind has allowed us to virtualize our environment without the huge expense of a dedicated SAN (the typical choice in the past), putting cluster technology and its benefits within our reach. Server downtime was a constant threat to our operation before StarWind, but has never been a problem since.

Without question, the support. StarWind has been a valuable technology partner for us from the beginning. On the rare occasion when we have had a problem, or have simply needed to do an upgrade, they have provided first-rate support. Anyone who has dealt with common off-shore support understands the frustration in dealing with incompetent and difficult to communicate with support staff. This is not so with StarWind, as their support staff is comprised of true experts who can also communicate clearly. For highly technical products this is essential.  The best part about their tech support though, is that you probably won't need it much!

On the technical side, the performance has been excellent.  I have never found a reason to regret not going with a traditional SAN. The configuration is so much simpler, with fewer points of failure to worry about. Integration with Microsoft clustering has been perfect, allowing us to leverage our investment in MS server licensing to the fullest. Updates to server hardware are now painless and done during working hours with zero stress. We had a RAID failure a few months back, and nobody in the building even noticed and there was no after hours time used for repair. It's the best!

Very few aspects of this solution need improvement. Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date, and it is always good to check with support to make sure that whatever you are looking at is current. The good news here is that this is very easy to accomplish. If we stay with the Virtual SAN instead of the managed appliances it would be great to have more automated tooling around managing the iSCSI connections in Windows, which can be a bit confusing at first.

Zero. It runs like a rock.

The current non-managed solution is limited to 3 nodes.

Their customer service at every level, both in terms of our account and technical support is very good. Everything has always been timely and first-rate. I have learned many things about not just StarWind but also Microsoft clustering, iSCSI, and even Hyper-V from Starwind support staff. They are true geek pros!

Before StarWind we were still in a non-virtualized environment of standalone servers with disparate hardware.

These are complex products to set up by nature. StarWind's excellent support makes it easy, but we were able to get our test setup running in just a few hours by reading documents and their forum.

We implemented with our in-house team and StarWind support only. Their expertise not just with their own product but with Microsoft clustering and Hyper-V was amazing. We didn't need any other support to get the job done.

It has paid for itself many times over in reduced downtime and maintenance costs.

Make sure that you understand what all of the pieces do and don't make the assumption that you can drop support once setup is complete.

Yes, we looked at Nutanix and several traditional dedicated SANs.

Make sure that you understand your performance requirements clearly. Learn how to measure your performance needs in your existing environment BEFORE you shop, so that you can be sure that you are looking at the right solution. In all of the planning that goes into making the correct decision on these types of products, understanding performance (and not just making assumptions) is the most neglected part. There is no quicker way to over or under build your solution than to not have real performance numbers for planning.

Hyperconverged lab and testing environments fulfill several special requirements for use cases. We use it for demonstration environments and for virtualization and containerization. We have a rather smaller footprint, ranging from two to three nodes over the years. 

Mainly, we have an edge use case. Another use case is refurbishing and second lifecycle evaluation, specifically I/O and disaster recovery capabilities, which are important in these lab environments. 

Modernization could also be counted as a use case since modernizing data centers on small-scale or edge deployments is becoming increasingly important, even for smaller businesses.

For my organization, StarWind vSAN has been a first of firsts in hyper-converged storage and has been, first and foremost, a technology demonstrator that should disclose and present the advantages of modern data center constellations. 

Over the years, it has also functioned as a lab environment and customer demonstrator specifically for refurbishing old hardware and educational objects for our internal apprentices, effectively transforming our mindset towards modern data center infrastructure. It also served as a proof of concept for refurbishing and cost-reducing existing infrastructures.

I have found the overall ergonomy and manageability outstanding during normal functioning. Specifically, the console GUI's monitoring and configuring capabilities can be counted towards that. 

Even when not administrated via GUI, the comprehensive Powershell automation module remains, which comes with templates prepopulated for the most common automation tasks. 

Furthermore, the solution provides great performance for the price it is listed with and can even run properly without proper hardware, however, it is even more efficient and performs better when procuring proper hardware is possible.

My impression has been mostly positive. However, there have been some pitfalls. For example, it runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear. This consequently follows a long learning curve and can take some time until this can be done efficiently. 

The feature log-structured file system has been removed. While I have not used it, I know some colleagues who have reported some performance benefits under certain circumstances. 

Additionally, vSAN does not offer extended SAN features like inline deduplication, compression, or S3-compatible access, which is part of most modern SAN feature sets, also in hyper-converged scenarios.

I have been using several editions of the solution for more than five years.

The stability of this solution is vastly dependent on the hardware procured beforehand. Network hardware is especially important, and bad or glitchy hardware (like the Intel X700 or X800 series) can quickly break things. It runs—until it does not. Be sure to learn or consult about the disaster recovery process, especially if you decide on a witness strategy hosted in vSAN.

The software can be pretty scalable; however, after reaching more and more nodes, one may look at StarWind's hyperconverged appliance instead of going through the hassle of administrating separate systems.

They have only friendly and positive experiences, always a helping hand. Also, they are offering proactive support, which, from the experience of some of my colleagues, is an outstanding experience unusual to many professional service providers.

Neutral

We did not use a different solution beforehand.

The initial setup was very straightforward and easy, although one could deep dive into the specific protocol configuration options. Also, I would have liked it if some features or procedures would have been better documented at the time.

We implemented it through our in-house R&D team.

I will not publish accurate numbers. However, the modernization aspect in terms of lab infrastructure and testing/demonstration environments has an educational benefit, strengthening our consultancy, demonstrating capabilities and our mindset towards data center innovation.

I would highly advise new users to consult the StarWind technical team beforehand. 

Also, consider the paid version if you want the ease of management through the console GUI and not just use it for monitoring. 

You can also apply for a testing or NFR license if you want to test it. StarWind vSAN is, by list price, vastly more competitive than some comparable solutions. The setup may be straightforward, fast, and easy; however, it can break things down if not done properly. Before setup, be sure to procure proper hardware components that are not known to cause instabilities.

Due to budget constraints, Ceph has been evaluated as an alternative. We also took a look at Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and VMware vSAN.

Consider StarWind's proactive support. It improves the software's already high value and defuses the long learning curve of some processes! When clustering resources, deeply consider your witness strategy! Especially when you can not guarantee 100% stable hardware (e.g., through firmware issues), this can break things very quickly if you have a witness device in the same vSAN.

We're using Starwind as a failover cluster for load balancing and increased availability.

We had no failover solution before, so if our standalone VMware server went down, we'd be out of operation until we restored from backup. Now we have a Hyper-V cluster with shared storage. We can lose one server and stay online. Failover happens smoothly, recovery and maintenance are less stressful, and we no longer need to worry about downtime. When we tested StarWind, we confirmed that the high availability performs as expected. That level of confidence helps me sleep better at night. 

We only had to purchase two new servers and no other storage or networking equipment. Virtual SAN runs on iSCSI, which is free and easy to configure. It's easy to manage from StarWind's GUI console, and it only required a few extra switch ports. StarWind has specialized in storage solutions for many years, and its track record reassures us that the solution will continue to exist and be supported in the future. I scheduled an interactive validation and tuning session before we went live. I found this to be very valuable, and it proved to us how much the company is committed to its product.

It would be helpful if StarWind provided more precise and detailed documentation explaining how to configure the solution in various scenarios, including the advantages and disadvantages of each. 

I'd also like a mechanism for notifying us when updates are available as well as a visual interface for iSCSI and physical storage. A mobile app for alerts and notifications would be helpful, too. We should still have access to security patches even if we don't pay for support. Lastly, StarWind should make it easier to perform an orderly shutdown of the entire environment in a power outage when everything is running on battery.

We've been using StarWind Virtual SAN for less than a year

We had an old standalone VMware server hosting several virtual machines that we wanted to replace with something highly available at a low cost. I researched and found StarWind Virtual SAN to be the best solution. We only had to purchase two new servers and no other storage or networking equipment. 

I'd recommend purchasing at least one year of support. It helps to have support on the initial configuration.

I rate StarWind Virtual SAN nine out of 10. 

We have utilized StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN) as an iSCSI server alternative in a Hyper-V based installation. We ran a 30-day trial license in a lab environment. The StarWind vSAN solution was used as a software-defined iSCI storage solution for an imminent SQL Server cluster installation. This allowed us for a fairly quick integration solution for our SQL Server cluster shared disk requirements, without the need to invest in a high-cost Storage Area Network (SAN) solution. 

It is a good practice to use storage performance evaluation tools, such as Microsoft DiskSPD, to evaluate IOPS metrics and perform stress testing in a lab environment with synthetic transactions for your prospective application. In our case, we conducted synthetic transactions for stress testing to prepare for a SQL server failover cluster installation.

There are various reasons that led us to pick StarWind vSAN for our implementation. 

Firstly, because it offers a robust iSCSI-based virtual server which is software-defined and comes at a fraction of the cost, as compared to buying an expensive hardware Storage Area Network (SAN). 

Secondly, because it is compatible with KVM. We do implementations based on the KVM hypervisor besides HyperV and VMware, and StarWind vSAN is among a limited number of platforms which offer native support for KVM. 

Last but not least, it offers a fully functional trial license to test the product in a lab environment in a variety of deployment options, including both Linux-based virtual appliances and Windows-based executables.

StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN) offers a significant breadth of features. The ones which were the most significant and value-adding in our topology and implementation included the overall admin and user-friendliness of the solution and the rapid deployment times gave us a platform for a very quick-to-market solution for our SQL Server cluster-based applications. It allowed us to develop a solution in less than 30 days with less than one-third of the overall estimated cost investment compared to a traditional hardware-based SAN.

The StarWind vSAN solution is versatile and offers broad support for different hypervisors and deployment formats. During our evaluation of our on-premises setup, we did not find any significant flaws. 

One point for improvement is to increase the performance capabilities of the Windows-based executable as compared to its Linux Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) equivalent. 

Another point for improvement would be to incorporate a more granular Role-based access control system (RBAC) natively inside the software to allow for more granular administration. 

Yet another point would be to achieve tighter integration and automation with cloud-based platforms, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

I have used StarWind vSAN installations in a lab environment on many occasions over the past five years; the most recent of which was during a 30-day trial run in 2024.

There have been no dropouts nor any downtime during the deployment and during the evaluation operations of the product with our SQL Server cluster instances.

StarWind vSAN performs steadily under heavy usage and can scale well if needed to support larger-scale systems. In our case it supported a significant number of clustered SQL Server instances without any issues in scaling up when needed.

The customer service and sales team have been very responsive and helpful throughout the evaluation of the product.

Positive

We have used hardware-based SAN solutions based on the IBM V5000 series. We did not switch this solution. We continue to trust IBM V5000 and V7000 solutions for higher-end implementations, where budget is not an issue. In cases of lower budget and quick time-to-market implementations, though, StarWind vSAN has helped us make good progress.

The setup was straight forward in most aspects and it was based on a well documented step-by-step procedure, which was provided by the vendor.

Implementation was an in-house one.

Make the most of your 30-day trial license, and if needed, you should contact the sales department of StarWind to extend the trial license or upgrade to a full license. 

We based our decision on previous positive experience with StarWind vSAN. Also due to brevity of time and tight project timeframe, there was no sufficient time for evaluating other options.

I would advise that you implement the Linux-based Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) during your evaluation phase, since the expected performance metrics are better, as compared to Windows-based executable. 

As per StarWind software documentation, the Linux-based CVM offers a a wide range of features, better performance, and stability, including reduced CPU usage and lower I/O latency.

Our organization was facing issues with storage. The main challenge was the secure backup and its restoration. 

StarWind Virtual SAN helps us get rid of storage issues within the organization. The best part is StarWind Virtual SAN supports a hypervisor environment and our organization was also using the same platform for infrastructure which makes it easier for us to deploy and implement. 

It also has built-in multifactor authentication which makes it compliant with our local regulations for the banking sector.

Our organization now can easily back up and have the data also available. Our main issue was to have a solution that has high availability of data and this solution solves that problem. In the internal audit, we also observed how helpful it was to have a proper backup solution with high availability which is now achieved by StarWind Virtual SAN. The solution has high performance which means the backups do not suffer from restoration and availability. It also has different storage RAIDs which helps to manage data in a proper way. We can use it without any latency.

The management console of the StarWind Virtual SAN is user-friendly.

You can also manage the storage in different segregated RAIDS.

It has built-in multifactor authentication available.

The performance of the solution is accurate and concise.

It gives great high availability.

The cost of the solution is overall effective.

Reporting is a great tool available in the product to demonstrate it to senior management.

StarWind Virtual SAN has very appropriate features available with the solution and it is all in one solution.

Overall the experience with StarWind Virtual SAN is good. One main thing this product needs to work on is reporting. It has all predefined reporting. They should introduce reporting which can be customized according to the organization's needs. 

They need to have local support available for the product which will make response to the support cases easier and more effective.

Overall, the experience with StarWind is good and the product is precise and readily available.

I've used the solution for less than one year.

The solution is overall stable and effective.

The solution is highly scalable.

They have very responsive customer support.

Positive

We did not use a different solution previously. Only the backup was done on local systems.

The deployment is pretty straightforward and we implemented it with the help of the vendor.

The overall vendor team is professional and skillful. They helped us a lot. 

It gives good ROI to the organization since it is cost-effective.

They also offer a free trial version of the product with basic features. An organization should test the product before implementing it.

We have evaluated VMware and found the cost was a bit high compared to StarWind Virtual SAN.

We have a hypervisor environment and it works best with that. If your organization is running any other environment for infrastructure, you need to ensure all features are up and running before implementing them in production.