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reviewer1679403 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
User
Easy to configure and simple to maintain with great cache features
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy."
  • "If there was one thing we could request, it would be the ability to shrink volumes. For example, we want to be able to decrease in the size of the volume."

What is our primary use case?

We are currently running a Microsoft environment. The Virtualisation stack is currently hosted through Microsoft Hyper-V. We are using local storage and hosting our storage via Starwind Virtual SAN for our production systems.  

Currently, we are only running a two-node cluster to serve our Hyper-V storage. Both nodes are directly connected. This little two-node cluster currently supports all of our offices across the country.  

Our business has a heavy reliance on the systems and systems uptime of 24/7 is required.

How has it helped my organization?

Starwind has significantly improved our performance in comparison to our previous environment. Our uptime and our internal SLAs are great. Over the years, it has not failed us once. 

Their support has been amazing and is always there for us when needed. We have worked with various support members over the years and every single one of them knows the product without needing to escalate. Being Hardware agnostic has also helped us a lot to maintain our systems and update to new hardware without worrying about the usual compatibility issues.

What is most valuable?

Starwind is very easy to configure and even easier to provision.  

Even better is how simple it is to maintain and patch without any downtime.  

Over the years we have updated both the operating system and the hardware on several of our nodes without any downtime incurred.  

The cache features that are available have significantly improved our performance.  

The ability for us to manage all of our nodes from the same console makes systems administration very easy.  

Tasks such as adding, removing, and expanding volumes are very easy.

What needs improvement?

Starwind Virtual SAN has fulfilled all of our requirements. There is not anything additional we require. The product does everything we need and more.  

If there was one thing we could request, it would be the ability to shrink volumes. For example, we want to be able to decrease in the size of the volume. We understand this is not a limitation in the product as it can potentially cause more problems by leaving things behind. Also, even though we cannot decrease the volume at this time, it is easily addressed by creating a new volume with the appropriate size and migrating data over to it.

Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
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For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Starwind since 2015.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. We have not had a single outage or drop due to Starwind.  Software has never crashed or not performed as specified.  Our uptime is only disrupted by server maintenance and scheduled periods.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is very scalable as you can add as many nodes as you require along with additional hardware.

How are customer service and support?

In over 20 years of working in the IT industry, I have never encountered better support than I have with the team at Starwind. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Microsoft Storage Spaces.

How was the initial setup?

It was as if we didn't need to do anything. Starwind was there from the start to help us provision.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the initial setup all in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would strongly advise companies to engage with Starwind very early in the design process as they can help with finding the appropriate path. The pricing model is very simple.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated HP SAN, Nutanix, and Dell Storage.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Head of Local Area Network Department at JSC Ufanet
Real User
High availability for a small cost
Pros and Cons
  • "This has helped to improve the reliability of service and operation in all departments, without having to stop in case of emergency situations."
  • "It would help us if the vendor continues to release software updates for earlier versions of the Windows operating systems."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for this product is to obtain high availability for our file servers under the control of the Microsoft Windows 2008 operating system.

How has it helped my organization?

We have a ready-made solution for a small cost. This has helped to improve the reliability of service and operation in all departments, without having to stop in case of emergency situations.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ability to offer high availability service without purchasing external storage systems. It is quick, easy, and simple. This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems. We saved a lot of money. The system will increase the level of backup, adding an additional copy of the data for the same money.

What needs improvement?

It would help us if the vendor continues to release software updates for earlier versions of the Windows operating systems. For example, Windows Server 2008 R2. We are sitting on earlier Microsoft products while there is support. This is because of the need for new hardware when switching to new software.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. We have not observed failure in seven years of use.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling this solution is easy and simple.

How are customer service and technical support?

Support has standard procedures and rules. It was provided at a good level.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use a different solution previously. We switched from a system that did not offer high availability.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple.

What about the implementation team?

The installation was completed by our in-house team.

What was our ROI?

Our return of investment on this product is 100%.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My advice is to use all the features of the service, including software updates and technical support.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other products because this option was the only one available at our cost point.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, this is a good product for good money.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
StarWind Virtual SAN
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about StarWind Virtual SAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
GrzegorzEBX - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at ElectronicsBox.com.pl
Real User
Now we have a redundant storage system, so our cluster system is fully redundant

What is our primary use case?

Before, we used a cluster of two Windows servers with shared storage system on a single SAN. One of them was a working clustered SQL server with database mirroring. Every part of the system was redundant except for SAN.

It was almost satisfying.

Every cluster server system we know needs shared storage system. The cluster could be fully redundant, but this redundancy is worth nothing without a redundant storage system.

We had a single SAN system. As a single system, SAN was not redundant. But we needed a redundant storage system. We always were afraid that once upon a time our SAN will stop to work.

We, of course, had backups, but it was not enough.

What we needed was the system with no data loss in case of issues and with no interruption (or only several seconds of interruption) in data processing.

We were looking for a relatively simple and not very expensive solution.

Why have we selected StarWind among other storage solutions? Actually, I don’t know why. Simply, I was looking for a solution using Google. StarWind was the first system I found that gave me hope. When I did some tests with StarWind, I stopped looking for anything more.

How has it helped my organization?

Now we have a redundant storage system, so our cluster system is fully redundant. We now have two clusters of two nodes Windows Hyper-V servers with StarWind VSAN working as hosts.

What is most valuable?

  • It was really very easy to implement, but without support, I couldn't optimize the system, and StarWind gave me technical support on a very good level.
  • A good price is also considerable.

What needs improvement?

I would like to have an easy way of automatic notification about issues, even when I'm away. The system has the possibility to send e-mails, but only in an internal mail system. Simply there is no possiblity the e-mail sender to log on smtp server. Several years ago some smtp server didn't require user to log on. But now it's impossible to send e-mail without login on. So if I had my own company internal e-mail server I could use it. Otherwise not. It's not enough for me.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

OK.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's OK.

How are customer service and technical support?

Support is on a high level.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used SAN hardware before with no redundancy.

How was the initial setup?

It was easy. But to achieve optimal performance, I needed support.

What about the implementation team?

In-house.

What was our ROI?

No idea.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

No idea.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I didn't. StarWind was the first solution I found, and after the first tests, I stopped looking at other solutions.

What other advice do I have?

No.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Technical Department Manager at ACS SA
Real User
Cost-effective, high-performance, and good technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "High Availability is the best feature of product."
  • "Maybe in the future, the replication will be supported in more cloud providers."

What is our primary use case?

StarWind VSAN software was easily deployed on the commodity hardware and integrated into the existing IT infrastructure.

We have used in HyperConvergence and Citrix XenServer installations without any problem.

With our customized hardware, we have very good IOPS and throughput.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution has allowed the company to create an HA virtual server environment satisfying budget restrictions and reliability requirements. VM live migration was ensured by StarWind VSAN as well, thanks to building a failover cluster.

The price of StarWind VSAN was another tidbit.

On top of all of this, the StarWind Support Team did everything to ensure that the IT infrastructure was up and running as quickly as possible.

What is most valuable?

High Availability is the best feature of product. You have redundancy of storage systems at a competitive price. All other storage solutions are very expensive and without redundancy and if you have it the price is very high.

Additionally, the feature of asynchronous replication, both for on-site and off-site systems is very competitive. Also the support of LSFS file system is very good.

What needs improvement?

Maybe in the future, the replication will be supported in more cloud providers.

I don't think there are features that this product doesn't have it. It has all of the things that a system engineer will want.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution has excellent stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is excellent.

How are customer service and technical support?

In one problem that I with the performance, they gave me a solution very quickly using a remote session.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before our StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) deployment, we had NetApp, IBM DS Series, and HP StorageWorks MSA1000 storage systems.

They have low performance and no replication (is very expensive).

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented this solution in-house.

What was our ROI?

The ROI for this solution is very good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options. We have only classic storage and filers.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend this solution because it gives me flexibility and expandability.

It works like a charm without any problem or concern.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1238652 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Highly available with no downtime, easy to deploy, good support
Pros and Cons
  • "Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."
  • "Performance when in storage-separate configuration needs to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We needed a SAN to support our environment comprised at the time of two Hyper-V 2012 Clusters. We're now migrating to Hyper-V 2019 and we had no issues with the migration from the storage. We use SATA NL and SSD to give our VMs different performance tiers.

Update: We finished the migration and moved all storage iSCSI comms to Mellanox. We have had 0 issues with Starwind. 

How has it helped my organization?

StarWind allowed us to deploy SSD storage with very high availabilty at a good price at a time where all other vendors were pushing huge premiums on SSDs. We were also able to deploy different storage tiers with no issues, which was very important to our solution.

What is most valuable?

Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs.

The high availability made sure we never had downtime from it.

Having twin nodes has made maintenance and upgrades easy.

Support has always been great with issues and planning.

What needs improvement?

Performance when in storage-separate configuration needs to be improved.

The virtualization layers and not having the storage on the same node as compute take a lot of the IOPS we could have on an HCI scenario, but we grew out of it.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution since 2015.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution itself is simple and having two separate hosts gives it great availability. There is no single point of failure apart from the software itself and while we had some issues we never lost both nodes.

We only came close when Microsoft introduced a bug that crashed our hosts if they had pending iSCSI connections, and you have those if a node is not synced.

How are customer service and technical support?

No issues.

They solved our problems, validated our configurations and roadmap, and suggested improvements.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Prior to this solution, we used HPE MSA. We wanted easier tiering, better performance, and not to have everything on one "box".

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple. We chose our HW, validated with support, and had them help configure them.

It's easy to understand and to deploy.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated solutions by HPE, EMC, and NetApp.

What other advice do I have?

We're satisfied with the features available.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1145355 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works with 201-500 employees
Real User
Create new SANs on demand, making the most efficient use of existing hardware
Pros and Cons
  • "When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."
  • "The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen."

What is our primary use case?

I used their Virtual SAN software to add new SANs to my VMware environment. I began working for a company that had a Virtual Environment already in place and there was no documentation regarding the configuration of the system. The storage was not managed correctly and I had to find a way to make space with what hardware I had at the time.

How has it helped my organization?

The storage space in the VMware environment I walked into was mismanaged and we needed immediate access to more storage. There was a Dell PowerVault that had plenty of space, and this software enabled me to make the most of my storage.

Given that I could not purchase new equipment I had to find a way to make this PowerVault become the storage without disrupting things. StarWind Virtual San allowed me to achieve this quickly.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ability to make new SANs on the fly. When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed. There are times when we still need storage to be controlled and the software allows me to make the needed changes. It can be done right from their application and then pushed directly over to the hosts.

What needs improvement?

The only thing that I have any difficulty with is that in order to perform upgrades, it is required that the SANs be detached from the Hosts before that can happen.

In my industry, having one hundred percent uptime means that I must either migrate everything off of the existing SANs so I can perform the upgrade, or shut everything down, detach the SANs and then reconnect them after the upgrade is complete.

At this point, while I am running an older version and the features still work within the latest versions of VMware, I won't see it as being a problem until I add more storage to allow for the proper migration and upgrade to happen.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have never had any downtime. This software has managed the SAN connection to my VMs perfectly for the last four years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This software has done everything I need. It saved me a lot of time when I was given an extremely short time to add additional space to my Virtual Environment.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have only needed to reach out to the support team a couple of times since this software was implemented. They responded within a couple of hours and everything was figured out quickly. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

There were no previous solutions in place. The setup of the VM Environment was mismanaged initially. This software helped me regain control of the management of storage quickly. 

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward setup and the configuration was no problem.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented this solution in-house. 

What was our ROI?

I saw an immediate ROI as I had storage that was not being utilized. Instead of having to spend $10K-$20K to add new storage to the existing environment, wait on the hardware to arrive, and then configure it directly as a new LUN, I was able to use this solution. I purchased the software, installed it on the system that I had with excess space, and created a few new SANs the same day the request was being made with an urgent time frame.  

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The timeline to get the storage was extremely limited so I didn't have time to do evaluation testing.

What other advice do I have?

Their support team is terrific. I have only had to reach out to them on a couple of occasions. They responded quickly and helped me to get things resolved right away. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Works at Cloud4y.ru #1 корпоративный облачный провайдер
Real User
Helped us to make better strategical decisions, work safely and quickly
Pros and Cons
  • "The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."
  • "In all areas the product could be made faster."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is data storage. It has helped us to make better strategical decisions, work safely and quickly.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution has improved our organization, as it gave us a data storage service that we could rely on and a very sensitive and responsive support service. We are now able to plan better for the future, knowing that support is available.

The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system. It is quite inspiring when you receive quality, speed, and a good relationship with the people in the company.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features for our company, Cloud4Y, in this system are:

  1. Convenience of work
  2. Working speed
  3. Usage of SATA for a large volume
  4. PCIe Flash
  5. A 40 GB Ethernet

What needs improvement?

In all areas, the product could be made faster.

If any additional features appear, we would appreciate having the service inform us.

We are quite satisfied with the things we have already received, but we
also would be glad to see other inspiring features from a new generation.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

How are customer service and technical support?

We are satisfied by the level of service we got almost six years ago and continue to receive. We were surprised to see a really user-friendly level of communication and a very high level of technical expertise in their specialists.

We are impressed with the working capacity and speed of answers from the support service, as well as their help to install the software we needed. The responses from the support division, and the fact they take into account all our needs and wishes have really inspired us.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we relied on our own resources. We wanted to work on this with the professionals, so we chose this solution.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation and precise solution were good and fast. We had cooperation from the vendor, and the support was good.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated other options prior to this, but we didn't like them.

What other advice do I have?

As we now can rely on this company, we recommend that others make the same decision. We would like to add that everyone in our organization has felt the impact of the changes in the services we use and provide.

We also appreciate the long term cooperation that has lasted for years, with a consistent level of service. This allows our company to plan further ahead, as experience has shown that every solution the company provides us is and will remain, satisfying.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
ITManagefb53 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Asynchronous replication means our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have."
  • "I'm sure it needs bug fixes..."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is backup storage for our VM servers. 

How has it helped my organization?

Our day-to-day servers are all on StarWind and our backups went from nightly to every minute. That improves disaster recovery time from hours to minutes.

In addition, it has helped us to maintain high performance and data high availability on minimalistic resources. We haven't bought any hardware, it was all stuff we already had. We just reconfigured it and got new features. In terms of costs, it has reduced what we would have had to pay. We have saved approximately 80 percent. We would have had to buy a $100,000 server. Instead, we ended up with a $20,000 server and a little bit of software.

What is most valuable?

I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have.

In addition, we have it integrated with vCenter which makes the failover automatic. It's basically set-it-and-forget-it.

What needs improvement?

I'm sure it needs bug fixes, and there are new features coming down the pipe, but it works great.

For how long have I used the solution?

Less than one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's been completely stable for us. There were some bugs initially which slowed us down, but those were related to VMware and not StarWind.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

You can resize things on the fly as needed, add more storage as needed. Since it's all on Windows, you can expand the disk as much as needed and as quickly as possible.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their support has been excellent. They will walk you through every step of the way and help you with anything you need. They're great.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were using direct-attached for the primary servers and FreeNAS for the backups. We switched for the real-time replication and the failover.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward but it was also complex. There were a bunch of steps, but it was all very well documented and very well laid out. You follow steps and you end up with a working system at the end.

It took me a couple weeks, but that was because I had other things going on and a rather complex system. But if you just wanted the basics, you could probably get it set up in a couple of hours.

As part of my implementation strategy, I first set it up on three-way replication servers and after that was done, put it into production.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is excellent. It will run on anything. You don't have to buy a $100,000 server, with hardware you don't need. You just pay for the license and you're good to go.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't evaluate any other vendors. In our price range, this was the only vendor.

What other advice do I have?

The pricing is based on the amount of storage, so you should evaluate how much storage you're going to need for your license. I believe there's an unlimited tier which is also very reasonable.

In our organization, it's the backing data-store for the entire company, which is about 85 users. Programmers and management people make up our studio. For deployment and maintenance, it's just me with the support team at StarWind.

We don't have plans to increase usage. We're a small studio and we're not going to get bigger.

I give StarWind a ten out of ten. They have great support, a great product, it's simple and easy to use, and has a great price.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free StarWind Virtual SAN Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free StarWind Virtual SAN Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.