--- title: StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews meta_title: 'StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 203 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how StarWind Virtual SAN works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.7 review_count: 203 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-04' parent_category: name: IT Infrastructure url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure --- # StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews **Vendor:** StarWind, Inc. **Category:** [Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions ](https://www.g2.com/categories/hyperconverged-infrastructure-hci-solutions) **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 203 ## About StarWind Virtual SAN StarWind is the pioneer of hyperconvergence and storage virtualization, offering customizable SDS and turnkey (software+hardware) solutions to optimize underlying storage capacity use, ensure fault tolerance, achieve IT infrastructure resilience and increase customer ROI. StarWind has over 150 employees and caters to more than 400,000 customers worldwide. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) eliminates any need for physical storage by mirroring internal hard disks and flash between hypervisor servers. Thanks to its unique features, StarWind VSAN can be deployed on or integrated in any existing IT infrastructure. By acquiring a single solution, you will get a robust fault-tolerant storage pool, constant application uptime and endless scalability options with just 2 nodes. Key Features: - Allows to achieve high availability - Eliminates any downtime even if 1 or more nodes fail - Ties the cluster into a single storage pool - Overcomes HCLs and has no restrictions on sockets or features - Offers flexible scalability, up and out - Easy management through a web console or thick client ## StarWind Virtual SAN Reviews ### 1. StarWind Virtual SAN Database Solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Zeeshan A. | IT Secops Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 06, 2025 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The product interface is user-friendly and it is easy to manage most importantly database replication is very fast which will provide stability to our applications. it is easy to manage daily operations on the interface and in case of connectivity issues troubleshooting is very easy and can resolve issues easily. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** In HA deployment it is complex and it is not very easy. it will take time to make sure that your HA deployment is up and smooth. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have multiple applications running and before this we aleays found issue in data transfers and stability of all databases. But Starwind provide better and fast replication rate which ensures database stability that's why we use it for all of our databases, ### 2. Great Sync Software for Hyperconverged Environments **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eren C. | Senior IT-Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 14, 2022 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** We run StarWind in our HC Cluster. - We like the reliablility of the software. - In a cluster of 2 nodes, never a sync issue, stable heartbeat - Fast sync syncronizes data after a node reboot, no need for full sync - Full utilization of interfaces, in our case 2x 25GBit Fiber connection, which results in 750MB/s Fileserver VM Performance - Fantastic forum and mail support, even without support license **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** - Setup with a free-license StarWind Management Console goes via PowerShell Templates but the documentation online is mainly with the licensed version. This was not like that before so StarWind changed the licensing options, which means the free version is basically only for monitoring. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind is solving our HC storage in a 2 node cluster. We mainly focus on sync performance and low latency and that's where StarWind shines. 384 days of uptime without any issues. ### 3. Solid and scalable solution, but documentation is decidedly lacking **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Games | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 06, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** VSAN is very scalable, starting with one node and about as little storage as you want. Scaling up and out can be done from the start, or later on, which gives VSAN a huge amount of flexibility for use cases. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Documentation is lacking for the scripted install and configuration. If you're using the scripts to configure and install, be prepared for a lot of digging, forum searching, forum posting, and trial and error. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Moving storage to one platform, and being able to boot multiple servers from the VSAN system. Storage has been all over the place, and needed to be more flexible than it currently is. This will bring more reliability, higher storage availability, and more storage flexibility. ### 4. StarWind Virtual SAN is cost-effective and integrates well with vSphere. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kader B. | Infrastructure Architect, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 28, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The most helpful aspect of StarWind Virtual SAN is its ability to extend the life of existing hardware while reducing costs. Here are the key upsides of using StarWind Virtual SAN: Cost-Effective Repurposing of Old Servers: StarWind Virtual SAN allows us to repurpose older servers with significant disk capacity, transforming them into valuable resources rather than letting them go to waste. This significantly cuts down on hardware expenses, aligning with both budgetary constraints and sustainability goals. Seamless Integration with vSphere: The solution integrates effortlessly with vSphere, enabling efficient storage virtualization within a three-node cluster. This integration supports a wide range of environments, from proof of concept (POC) setups to full production workloads, providing the flexibility and scalability needed for diverse IT needs. Linux-Based Operation Reduces Licensing Costs: Running on CentOS Linux instead of a Windows-based system further reduces costs by eliminating the need for additional software licenses. This makes StarWind Virtual SAN not only economical but also suitable for organizations looking to optimize their IT infrastructure without incurring high software expenses. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Complex Setup and Configuration: The initial setup and configuration, especially with the free version, require a deep understanding of vSphere and virtualization concepts. This complexity can be a barrier for organizations without in-house expertise, leading to longer deployment times and potential errors during implementation. CentOS End of Life (EOL) Risk: StarWind Virtual SAN runs on CentOS, which has reached its end of life. This presents a significant downside as it introduces potential security vulnerabilities and the need for future migration to a supported Linux distribution. This uncertainty could impact system stability and require additional resources to manage the transition. Limited Out-of-the-Box Usability: Unlike some other virtualization solutions, StarWind Virtual SAN does not offer a simple, plug-and-play experience. It requires careful planning, and customization, and may involve a steep learning curve, particularly for smaller teams or those without specialized IT skills. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind Virtual SAN solves the problem of repurposing old servers by turning them into efficient storage resources, significantly cutting hardware costs and reducing licensing expenses. This benefits us by maximizing our existing hardware investment and aligning with our sustainability goals, all while integrating seamlessly with vSphere for flexible and scalable storage solutions. ### 5. Great Product, Excellent Customer Service **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kyle B. | Systems Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 22, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwind's customer service is exceptional. From day one, their support team has been responsive, knowledgeable, and proactive. They quickly address issues, minimizing downtime, and offer tailored solutions that fit our specific needs. The team's professionalism and courtesy make even complex problems manageable. Extensive documentation and resources further enhance our experience. Starwind's commitment to customer satisfaction is evident in every interaction, making their support truly outstanding. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** While StarWind Virtual SAN offers many advantages, one area of improvement could be its initial setup and configuration, which can be somewhat complex for users unfamiliar with virtualized storage solutions. Additionally, while the documentation is comprehensive, it can sometimes be challenging to navigate for specific troubleshooting needs. Enhanced, more intuitive user interfaces and more streamlined setup processes would significantly improve the overall user experience. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind Virtual SAN has had a significantly positive impact on our overall business objectives, particularly in terms of ROI. By virtualizing our storage infrastructure, we have reduced our capital expenditure on physical SAN hardware by approximately 40%, leading to substantial cost savings. Operational efficiency has improved by 30% due to reduced maintenance and faster provisioning of storage resources. This solution has also enhanced our data availability and resilience, resulting in a 25% reduction in downtime and associated costs. These improvements have not only streamlined our IT operations but also allowed us to allocate resources more effectively toward strategic initiatives, driving overall business growth and profitability. ### 6. Exploring Starwind VSAN as an iscsi Server Solution **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consulting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 24, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** There are various reasons which lead 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 the 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, because 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 appliance and Windows-based executable. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The Starwind VSAN solution is versatile and offers broad support of different hypervisors and deployment formats. During our evaluation in 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). **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** 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. ### 7. Starwind virtual SAN **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Marian L. | Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 17, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Is a very reliable storage solution, many features. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Actually there is nothing to dislike. I implemented over 5 years ago, no issued so far. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Hyper-V converged with 2 nodes using as storage Starvin Virtual SAN ### 8. StarWinds has the best support! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matt C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 14, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Overall it was a great experience dealing with the various StarWind team members from the pre-sales all the way through to implementation. This was our first experience with a hyperconverged failover cluster and the team at StarWinds made it easy for us. Before making the choice we were weighing out all the cluster options and everything kept coming back to StarWinds. I'm glad it did as we definitely feel we made the right choice. We test live failovers every week and so far everything has been running smooth without anything unexpected. A special thank you to Hanna from the implementation team who was not only friendly and extremely patient through the process but also very knowledgeable. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Pricing is a bit high but the support is worth it. It's really hard to point out any other negatives. I do think the licensing and support pricing structure could have been laid out a little simpler and then pricing could have been less of course but the truth is the support really does make up for the cost in our opinion. We did decide to go with 3 years of 24/7 support due to implementation in a critical communications center, but feel like we won't need to use them for much at all since the products just works. Because of this the pricing could have been better especially with us purchasing all 3 years at once. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We built a 2 server hyper-V failover cluster. We build typical servers like we normally would with NVME drives and plenty of storage. This software works hand in hand with Microsoft hyper-v failover manager for a seamless setup that has not given us any issues since implementation. Live failovers are tested every week and the customer does not even notice when the failovers are tested. The performance is exceptional and everything works as expected. We went ahead and got the 3 year 24/7 support contract since it's a critical customer. While the price is a bit steep this process and product has given us a lot of peace of mind that the servers will continue running even if one of the physical hosts go down. ### 9. Hyperconverge software system fantastic **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Luca C. | Senior Back Office, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** This cloud solution can eliminates any need for physical shared storage by mirroring internal hard disks. It's has many features and it works very well. It's a great success for our customers. Top Job!! **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** maybe the maintenance a little expansive **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** easy management ### 10. Simple UI, Great Performance, Responsive Support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Insurance | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Needed a cheap solution for recommission of commodity equipment in disaster recovery location. We were moving away from vSAN to a hardware dHCI appliance which freed up hardware for use in our DR site. Starwind vSAN allowed us to redeploy existing hardware in our disaster recovery site without incurring additional costs or complexity to get the environment up and running smoothly. Licensing costs were reasonable and support during setup and migration to the target site were responsive and effective. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Nothing, I found the product performed as advertised and support was great! **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allows us to redeploy commodity hardware to our DR with minimal cost. ### 11. Great product geared towards small enterprises **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel V. | Systems administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 22, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** It helps leverage storage on servers instead of getting a deticated SAN, saving costs and space. Support is effective and friendly. The fact that it is now possible to have a witness host for election is great. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Setup is not always traightforward, guides are constently changing du to product changes and can sometimes not be precise. Need to purchase a seperate licence for witness host, if you renew a licence from before the witness, you need to repurchase the licence **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Space in rack and also using storage directly from servers ### 12. Starwind: a true 2 Node HA solution, great support, Great Storage Solution partner **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Building Materials | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 21, 2022 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** What we like best about it, is that's the only true two node Hyper-V cluster solution that's available. On both produciton locations we have a 2-node setup over 2 different Server room. Our main goal was that we want to have all VM servers available on one Cluster host ,in case of a disaster in one of our server rooms. Microsoft SSD (Storage Space Direct) always needs a 3rd witness (SMB or Cloud) but in our a two node solution this is not ideal. Direct connected fiber connections between the nodes makes everything fast and makes the chance of a Cluster split-brain fault less likely. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I can not think of anything that I dislike about the product. **Recommendations to others considering StarWind Virtual SAN:** Yes it a great product for a HA environment. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are using a Starwind Virtual SAN (VSAN) on two Production locations with a Hyper-V Cluster for almost 7 years now. Allready using this solution for about 10 years (when i was working at a other company) It has given us very good performance and haven't got any issue with it the past years. Starwind support is excellent, very fast and have very good knowledge of the Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software. It can be supported by a small IT Staff ### 13. Robust virtual storage solution for multiple platforms **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 08, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** f there would be three outstanding positive things, these would be… - …overall ergonomic manageability in times of normal functioning - …great console user interface and comprehensive PowerShell automation possible …great performance when paired with the proper hardware **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** If there would be three outstanding negative things, these would be… - …unclear disaster recovery documentation and consequently long learning curve - …Log-structured file systems have been removed …vSAN does not offer extended SAN features like inline deduplication or compression in some editions, but I heard that there is something in the works ;) **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have been working with StarWind's vSAN product in several editions for some years now, and, although there have been pitfalls and some difficulties at one point, we are satisfied with the handling, performance and stability of it. I have been firstly using StarWind vSAN for Hyper-V years ago during lab workshops in which there was a need for a small environment (2 nodes) with shared storage but no possibilities or budgets to buy dedicated storage hardware or expensive integrated solutions. At the time, I went through repurposing older server systems with mixed direct attached storage. One could say that this point was my introduction to the HCI paradigma. Operations here went very well since there are special guides I could follow from StarWind's knowledge base. Although not quite complying with the network requirements due to budget constraints, the performance, ease of setup and manageability delivered has been fine. The loads at this point have been container-based as well as virtualized (nested and non-nested) workloads. I was able to fulfill the I/O-requirements set to the lab environment. Later in my career I returned to StarWind's vSAN, this time for a similar but slightly bigger and technologically more advanced hyperconverged testing environment focussing on virtualization which served as proof-of-concept for the company's plannings, IT modernization and customer demonstrations. Again with mixed storage, but this time with proper hardware backing it, it delivered performant, ergonomically manageable and fast second day testing operations. Also the experience o ### 14. StarWind Virtual SAN: Unveiling the Hidden Gem in Hyper-Converged Infrastructure **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Banking | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 29, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The user-friendly interface and easy deployment, combined with the ability to use existing hardware, make it a cost-efficient solution for small to medium-sized businesses. StarWind Virtual SAN combines high availability, performance, and ease of use, making it a standout choice for enhancing storage infrastructure efficiently and affordably. Seamlessly scalable, StarWind VSAN supports various hypervisors and operating systems, integrating smoothly into hyper-converged infrastructures. StarWind offers robust technical support and extensive documentation, ensuring users can maximize their deployment with confidence. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** For those new to software-defined storage or virtual SAN solutions, there might be a steep learning curve initially. The complexity of configuring and optimizing the system can be challenging without prior experience. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) solves multiple challenges, providing high availability and fault tolerance through real-time data mirroring and automatic failover, ensuring uninterrupted data access and enhancing business continuity. It optimizes storage resources by consolidating them into a unified pool, improving efficiency and maximizing hardware use. By utilizing existing commodity hardware, it significantly reduces costs associated with traditional SAN or NAS solutions. ### 15. Good Software to storage data **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Reynaldo V. | Network Specialist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 12, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Support from StarWind to have an easy install and configuration. we use it once per week just to see if everithing is working ok. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Doesnt have a guide how to use it, we try to configure ourself, but we miss some steps. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Increase Storage and backup data from hardware issues. ### 16. Easy to use while improving the efficiency and reliability of storage infrastructure **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Stefano T. | Data Center Manager & System Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Virtualizing data infrastructure with StarWind Virtual SAN improves efficiency and reduces operational costs. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Improvements in documentation and support resources could enhance the user experience. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've been using StarWind Virtual SAN to manage our storage area network in our data centers, and I'm extremely satisfied with its performance. It has provided us with a fault-tolerant and high-performance storage pool that perfectly caters to the demands of our virtualized environments. One of the standout features for me is its seamless integration with our existing hypervisors, which has made managing storage resources for our virtualized applications and workloads both efficient and reliable. ### 17. Starwind VSan **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 23, 2022 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwind VSAN is easy to use and has a very clear GUI. The most valuable in Starwind VSAN is the way it works seamlessly with the Microsoft Fail-over cluster. The implementation went flawless with help of Starwind support. I need to say that technical knowledge is mandatory but nevertheless we had a quick installation. We are working with a 2-node set-up which suits are needs perfectlyI just works without any technical know-how needed. The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items. It's also easy to add an extra node if necessary or connect if you've rebooted one of the nodes. Also the speed of support is very valuable to us. If you have a problem or question you'll get almost an immediate answer. It's always operational due to our operational needs. I only need to check once a week just to be sure but I've already experienced the cluster works perfectly when onde of the hosts needs to reboot there's an direct switch to keep al the VM residing in the cluster working. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** There's a little documentation which is not that easy to find. Sometimes the connection between the two nodes is lost but this happens almost never. **Recommendations to others considering StarWind Virtual SAN:** Great product and superb support from scratch to operational VSAN **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It keeps the system alive and is a secure way to have some more redundancy. ### 18. The right sized solution for our business **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jonathan A. | Senior Systems Officer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The simplicity of the 2-node VSAN system was easy to get up and running and it was way more cost efficient than other solutions we explored. The support engineer assigned to us was extremely helpful and always followed up. This is a rare thing to find with vendors, I'm very used to having to chase down people repeatedly to get issues resolved. This really made me feel confident with the product that I not only got quick replies but I feel like they care about customer service. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The logs contain a password for the virtual appliance and present a security vunerability. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were interested in using the VMWare/Broadcom VSAN product but really struggled with the hardware requirements which were incredibly inflexible. Starwind VSAN offerred a solution that was flexible to the quantity of servers we budgeted for and didn't require us to over-invest into hardware we don't really need. ### 19. Starwinds is the best way to do HA Storage **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christian S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 29, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwinds vSAN made HA storage afforadable for my business. Before Starwinds, I could only afford single-point-of-failure SAN solutions. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwinds vSAN's management interface is cofusing to me and their feature names don't help. I also don't like the lack of a web GUI. That said, I set this up with the help of there support team in 2019 and haven't had to touch it since. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Starwinds was the only way I were able to afford a HS storage solution. Before Starwinds, I had to rely on single-point-of-failure SAN solutions. This improved the uptime and image of my company to my customers. ### 20. A Seamless, Cost-effective, and Reliable Storage Solution **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bruno S. | Director of IT, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I find StarWind Virtual SAN to be a user-friendly solution, with a straightforward installation process that's made even smoother thanks to the support provided. The cost-effectiveness of this solution is a big plus, particularly for small businesses operating on limited IT budgets, as it doesn't require any expensive hardware. What caught my attention was its hyperconverged approach, enhancing data recovery options, and providing efficient storage and backup solutions. I appreciate the customizable Software Defined Storage (SDS) and turnkey solutions offered to optimize storage capacity, ensure fault tolerance, and bolster infrastructure resilience. The professionalism and reliability of the StarWind team are commendable, with stellar support that's always there when needed. I value the high uptime, fault tolerance, and low latency ensured by this solution, making it a great fit for high-availability clusters without any complex setups. The positive ratings for integration and deployment further reflect a satisfactory overall experience with StarWind Virtual SAN, showcasing its reliable and effective solutions in managing storage and ensuring data recovery. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** There's a specific point about the vendor not recommending the use of broadcom network adapters which might be a limitation for some setups and for smaller organizations, the licensing costs can be prohibitive. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind Virtual SAN has been a game changer for my organization, addressing our storage and data recovery concerns efficiently. Its hyperconverged approach simplifies managing our IT infrastructure, enhancing data recovery options and optimizing storage capacity. ### 21. True 2-node VSAN, perfect for SMB! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Seth W. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 14, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I appreciate StarWind's ease of use in deployment and expansion and also its capabilities. StarWind offers a true 2-node VSAN setup, where you only need 2 hypervisors to spin up a VSAN between them and it syncs in real-time on 10Gbps links between them. The user interface is pretty easy to use (once you get used to the lingo) and it's dead simple to increase the size of virtual disks. Performance-wise, pretty wicked fast. You don't really notice the syncing performance when both hosts are up (obviously because it does it in the background), but if you take a host down for a few minutes then bring it back up, in the StarWind Console you can watch the virtual disk images on the downed host start syncing from the other host and watch it complete it, and it's pretty darn fast! In VMware vSphere, too, you can use one of the 10Gbps links for VM migration, which is insanely speedy! Going from 1Gbps to 10Gbps links for VM migration was a dream come true for me. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The only real gripe I've found with StarWind is that the official documentation for setup can be a bit lackluster, and sometimes you'd get confused by what it's showing (for VMware, at least) versus what you're seeing on your setup. Regardless of that frustration, you can (and should) reach out to their support and they'll walk you through it and answer any questions. At the time of writing, they include 1 year of support upon license purchase, so they'll help you with your deployment process. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We're a Visiting Nurse Association so it's pretty critical that we keep our infrastructure up, especially during the workday. Thus, we've had a physical SAN for years with RAID arrays to allow redundancy with our storage and, to pair with that, we had 2 physical hypervisors to run the workload. StarWind offered me a true 2-node Virtual SAN solution to replace my aging SAN appliance and, in addition to that, offered higher performance storage for our agency. All this together allows us to boost our productivity with performance improvements, further disaster-proof our infrastructure with better redundancy, and provides us even more room for expansion. After about 9 months of using StarWind, I'm very happy I went with their product for my storage needs. ### 22. Needed a diverse San this fit the bill. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel T. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 20, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Ease of use and pro support, robust and 24/7 monitoring. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I do not dislike anything it all works as it should. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have diverse data centres in the same building, if we had gone down the conventional San route we would have had to purchase 2 x replicated sans. We now have 2 hosts in different parts of the building giving us peace of mind if there is a power issue or flood we can switch to the backup. ### 23. An easy to use Hyper-converged Cluster in a Box **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raffi J. | Chief Executive Officer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 17, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind provides a standard based way to set up clusters on commodtiy servers using the tools you already know like HyperV and VMware. On top of that their support is steller. They proactively alert and assist you all along the way. StarWind also **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** My only gripe with StarWind is that they are reliant on certain commodity hardware products like Dell servers and their controllers. Sometimes those are hard to get due to supply chain issues. Not really a complaint, just something you need to be aware of **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were using very complex hardware solutions that were difficult to support and manage. StarWind allows us to use the tools we know like HyperV and easily manage our managed server clusters. The other problem problem was support with other products that were coming from different places. StarWind gave us great support before, during and after the sale. ### 24. Intuitive and fast software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Leone A. | Analista de infraestrutura de TI, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 13, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind Virtual SAN is truly exceptional. Its user-friendliness and storage virtualization efficiency are impressive. The redundancy and scalability provided ensure high availability, while the straightforward management simplifies administration. A reliable investment for any virtual environment. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind Virtual SAN has its drawbacks. While it offers good performance, the initial setup can be complex, requiring significant technical expertise. Licensing costs can also be prohibitive for smaller organizations. Additionally, the lack of certain advanced features may limit its suitability for some enterprise-level applications. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Primarily when converting virtual machines. Its intuitive interface and easy-to-use tools allow for seamless migration between various VM formats. With just a few clicks, you can adapt and transfer VMs to different environments, making the conversion process quick and uncomplicated. ### 25. Fantastic for mission-critical, high-availability virtual storage. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 22, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Fault tolerance and high availability - our organization has been saved many times now after implementing multiple, redundant instances StarWind VSAN in a clustered configuration. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Using a third-party solution is not always ideal, but StarWind VSAN really seems to be the best on the market for ease of use and implementation. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ability to have mission-critical, high-availability file shares always-online in a clustered state. It continues to work great in our production environment. ### 26. A tight, cost-effective SDS solution for SMBs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Diogo Henrique C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 17, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** It was really ease to set up and start testing. With a small VMware environment, we're able to promptly provide storage through Fibre Channel and measure performance, stability and reliability. In all those topics, Starwind VSAN was surprisingly good, not to mention the very welcoming and engaged customer support. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Documentation would benefit from a revamp and a thorough update. Also, Deduplication would be a nice feature to be included **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It presents a really cost-effective alternative to behemoths like VMware vSAN. For SMBs, this is gold, since there's not many SMBs hanging with $100k+ to spend on software. ### 27. Starwind - Easy to implement and Cost Effective **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 18, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwind was a breeze to setup and maintain. Working with their procurement team was a pleasure as well. Their support technicians are very thorough in both helping solve issues, and validating hardware configurations. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Support is very good, however our initial contact was somewhat difficult to understand. Some of the articles on their website could use updating, as there were some inconsisitencies in what I read vs. what support told me. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** The need to consolidate and virtualize our IT systems and have them be highly redundant. ### 28. Simplicity of administration and quick deploy **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 19, 2024 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Very easy for administration, quick and easy deploy. Very nice and professional support **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** You will need some resourses on you infrastructure for Apppliances **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We were able to deploy HCI on two physicall locations connected with L2 ### 29. User Experience of StarWind Virtual SAN **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Johnny T. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 09, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I like the reliability of StarWind, the products never fail on our virtual host storage enviroment **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** no at all to the funtionality, but if it can scale from the nodes number would be great, for example, 3-5nodes **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** To enable VM storage across different clusters, a dedicated hardware and redundancy solution is typically required. However, StarWind Virtual SAN provides an alternative by allowing me to achieve this through a software approach. This minimizes the need for additional hardware and optimizes the utilization of each server. ### 30. A very useful tool for several facets of IT **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joshua G. | Systems Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 18, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Easy to setup. Very robust in its offerings. Great customer support. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** We have no dislikes thus far with their virtual san solution. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We had several applications and servers in our test/dev environemnt that needed different types of storage options. StarWind Virtaul SAN allowed us to meet those needs in a cost-affordable manner. The fact it supports so many storage options was key for us. ### 31. Simple solution to a (fairly) simple problem **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joni L. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 01, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Simple to use and setup, provides good redundancy and fault tolerance, and doesn't require expensive and external NAS or SAN iSCSI storage for your solution. It's simple, but great. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The free version is not very easy to start setting up, as there is a lack of up-to-date resources in this department if you want to use the CLI for trying it out. The GUI could also use an update. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides us with a 2-node file server cluster with fault tolerant storage using just the built in disks, without having to use external iSCSI disks. This means we have much better uptime, can focus on less infrastucture and ease-of-use, instead of managing a costly, external SAN. ### 32. Great product and nice and reliable team behind! Very professional **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 20, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The team was very reliable and helpful to answer an RFP and design a solution for our customer. They gave good hints how the network design should be done and what network adapters are not recommended. Very experienced! Clear pricing structure! The deployment and maintenance is very easy and the scalability of the SAN is great! **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Only one point is not so nice. The vendor does not recommend to use broadcom network adapters. We currently cannot find other negative points. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Starwind Virtual SAN improved our organization by giving us data backup and recovery options with their Virtual SAN Hyperconverged approach. We deployed the virtual appliance on our existing hardware and connected it with SFP+ Supermicro network adapters in a highly redundant scenario. We are convinced by Starwind so we are offering this to our customers as well. It improves our customers organizations as well. The product is highly scalable and can be enhanced anytime by adding more servers to the design. ### 33. Starwind Virtual SAN - Reliable and Affordable! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ted D. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The sales side is knowledgeable about their products. The technical support side is outstanding. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Some of the documentation could be improved. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** After virtualizing all of our systems (except for those with custom hardware) we needed to improve reliability. Moving to clustered virtual hosts was the logical next step. We reviewed hardware based shared storage solutions, and concluded that we could not afford them. We the reviewed software based shared storage solutions, and after evaluating several candidates, we settled on Starwind Software Virtual SAN. Factors that weighed heavily included longevity of the company, cost of the solution, availability of support, and reviews by technical personnel supporting the solution. ### 34. Starwind HCA, a scalable solution for SMB that won't break the bank **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Fantastic hyper-converged solution for SMB. The price point and pricing options allow for SMB deployment of a plug and play, scalable solution. Starwind allows for organizations with a small budget to deploy a modern, robust HCA solution. Organizations that have a need for remote office deployments can find a resilient solution with Starwind HCA as well. The ability to scale by simply adding additional nodes to the stack provides a unique opportunity. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwind Command Center single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V. I was disappointed to find there was no disclosure of VMware incompatibility so the single-pane management system was not available in a VMware environment. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creates opportunities with hybrid on-premise solutions TCO is lower versus traditional compute, storage, network architecture Ability to scale with organization's needs created flexibility ### 35. Starwind vSAN HCI Cluster is the way to go **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Danny R. | Technology & Product Director, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 09, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** We used this as a 3 node cluster setup for 2 reasons. Prevent downtime during hardware failure or upgrades and to allow to easily expand storage as needed. Customer support is amazing too **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwind missed 2 features we wanted but did not require, which was encrtion and also deduplication. Another feature that would be nice later on is the avbility to handle high latency stretched DR so we dont need to use a 3rd part ysoftware. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Starwind solves the issue of having downtime when a node fails, when you want to upgrade a node or add storage. Normally when a node was full you would need to power down and add drives and hope there is now issue expanding the array. Problem solved with vsan ### 36. StarWind Virtual SAN Cost Effective Solution **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 10, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind Virtual SAN works best with hypervisor environment. We get rid of our organization storage issue with this product. The backup and restoration of data also becomes easy with StarWind Virtual SAN. Overall cost of the solution is effective because there is no need to have extra physical servers. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind Virtual SAN should improve their reporting they only have builtin reports in their solution it should have option to customize some required reports for senior management. The documentation for troubleshooting known issues of the product is also limited. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our organization was facimg issue with respect to storage of the data as per compliance we should have 6 months live data and 6 months archive data. With the help of this solution we are able to have that. It also have built in Multi Factor Authentication which also requires for our own compliance prospective. ### 37. Pure Black Magic in a box, and World Class Support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Spencer L. | Information Systems Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Hands down, the best thing about StarWind has gotta be their support... They were able to connect remotely to my server, and were able to walk me thru the sometimes complicated sets of instructions that I had needed- including when we accidentally deleted one of our VMs and needed to recover it! For a production environment, this is critical support and a display of technical know-how that I have rarely ever witnessed or have participated in. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** My single complaint is that I wish that there were more training videos online, either on their website, or youtube or wherever that would train IT Managers with best practices and maybe highlight what others are doing with their solutions and environments. New ideas and new insight is how we can crawl out of our own personalized thoughts and "group thinking" that sometimes do not allow us to have the advantage because the thoughts have never been presented to us! So training and maybe monthly webinars would be an incredible tool to help people- in ways that they never even knew they needed! **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allowed us to get rid of several SAN storage solutions that were running at 100% power for most of the days, weeks, and years we had them turned on! You wanna talk about saving the environment? Start in-house, with solutions like StarWind, which drastically cut our electricity costs by using ONE TENTH the power we needed to run those File Servers and Physical Machines. We were able to consolidate and run with Solid State Drives, which improved speed, reliability, and the need for a room full of disparate servers doing their own thing, requiring specialty knowledge and training to set-up and more importantly- maintain! We are now able to log onto a single server interface and open our HyperV Manager and really get down and dirty with each server and it's needs. Being able to control them all so easily is also a single point of failover, but we are running in High Availability with two twin servers that back eachother up and maintain the status quo. ### 38. Stable, Performant, Great Support **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Farming | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 19, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I like that it is stable, performant, and Starwind provides great support **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The UI could look nicer if I'm nitpicking **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our primary use for StarWind Virtual SAN is to ensure exceptional performance and unwavering availability within our Hyper-V/Failover Cluster environment. This robust solution optimizes performance by reducing latency and improving productivity, essential for running concurrent virtualized workloads efficiently. Moreover, it guarantees near-zero downtime through a failover cluster configuration, enhancing our operational reliability and solidifying our reputation for delivering consistent, uninterrupted services. Our primary use for StarWind Virtual SAN is to ensure exceptional performance and unwavering availability within our Hyper-V/Failover Cluster environment. This robust solution optimizes performance by reducing latency and improving productivity, essential for running concurrent virtualized workloads efficiently. Moreover, it guarantees near-zero downtime through a failover cluster configuration, enhancing our operational reliability and solidifying our reputation for delivering consistent, uninterrupted services. ### 39. Simple, effective, and reliable **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris G. | Manager, IT & Security, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 29, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind VSAN is a simple and effective product that is very reliable. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** There is nothing I dislike about StarWind VSAN. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind VSAN solves the problem of providing robust highly-available storage. It has allowed us to improve the reliability of our two-node cluster by removing a single point of failure. ### 40. StarWInd vSAN is a great solution to downsize on-site storage/costs when moving systems to the cloud **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tom E. | IT Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 01, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Affordable cost, ease of use, great support **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Little guidance provided on best way to conduct free trial **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allowed us to reduce on site storage costs when it was time to replace our end of life NetApp SAN. Reducing on site storage costs was one of the cost justification for moving systesm tot he cloud so StarWInd allowed us to meet our goals. ### 41. StarWind Virtual SAN Quick Solution For Backup And Restoration **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** zeeshan a. | Financial Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 24, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Performance of StarWind Virtual SAN is fast and effective. Reporting templates and customization have a very intense impact on senior management. Backup is readily available for use and restoration process is easy. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The management console of StarWind Virtual SAN is petty complex for those engineers who are new with the product. It does not have strong local support partner in my country. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** it was helpful to Improve compliance & risk management. it also create and increase internal/operational efficiencies it also meets our RTO and RPO and also helful to meet or comply BCP and backup plans. ### 42. Affordable but rock solid product **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Henry P. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 24, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind vSAN allows me to build HA Hyper-V cluster on just two nodes, saving as much as 30% on hardware(with other solutions you need at least 3 nodes for truly fault-tolerant cluster). It also offers 30-day free evaluation period which you can extend longer to trial the product before signing the contract. Support is first very professional. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Some of its documentation was a bit confusing. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind vSAN creates high-available, performant shared storage for our 2-node Hyper-V cluster, allowing all virtual machines to automatically failover to the other working node in case one node in the cluster suffers a failure. The failover is almost instant and non perceivable to end users. ### 43. Highly recommend StarWind Virtual SAN for any virtualization environment. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** alan m. | Director IT, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Knowledgeable, friendly staff. Works, quick to set up and configure and administrate. Cost savings compared to other technologies. Simple, Straight forward, straightforward approach for users. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** No dislikes were noted or found during the test phase, and every question or concern we've had has been quickly addressed by staff. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We have been looking to retire our Mac Drobo and found the StarWind Virtual environment as a potentially perfect replacement using the Dell R750xs PowerEdge environment. We currently use Drobo between our Mac and Windows domains to bridge our virtual environment in Nutanix. Our current Drobo configuration requires a Head Mac Unit to be attached to the Drobo due to performance issues for translation directly from Macs to our Windows share and then to Drobo. Overall, I highly recommend StarWind Virtual SAN for any virtualization environment looking for a reliable and cost-effective solution and savings. ### 44. StarWind is an inexpensive, basic SAN platform **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Adam L. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 18, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** It's an order of magnitude less expensive than competing products. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Its features are basic. It has limited reporting and monitoring capabilities, and performance parameters are largely opaque. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** We wanted to start offering VM hosting as a service for our clients, so we needed to set up a failover cluster. Starwind allowed us to do so affordably. ### 45. StarWind easy-to-configure **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Max P. | IT Admin, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2022 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** For us, there are a couple of benefits of using StarWind Virtual SAN: - Simplified storage management: By creating a virtual shared storage pool, you can manage your storage as a single entity rather than having to manage individual storage devices on each host. - High performance: StarWind Virtual SAN is designed to deliver high performance by using direct memory access (DMA) and other techniques to minimize latency and maximize throughput. - High availability: The data replication feature of StarWind Virtual SAN helps to ensure data availability in the event of a host failure, reducing the risk of data loss and downtime. - Scalability: You can add additional hosts to the storage cluster as needed to scale up your storage capacity and performance. - Flexibility: StarWind Virtual SAN supports a wide range of storage protocols and can be used in a variety of storage configurations, making it a flexible solution for different types of storage needs. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** One potential limitation of StarWind Virtual SAN is that it requires a minimum of two servers to create a storage cluster, so it may not be suitable for environments with only a single server. Another potential challenge is that it requires a certain level of technical expertise to set up and configure the software, as well as to troubleshoot any issues that may arise. If you do not have in-house staff with the necessary skills and knowledge, you may need to seek out external expertise or support to get the most out of the product. In addition, while StarWind Virtual SAN is designed to provide high performance and high availability, the actual level of performance and availability that you achieve may depend on a number of factors, such as the hardware and network infrastructure that you are using, and how you have configured the software. Finally, like any software-defined storage solution, StarWind Virtual SAN is dependent on the underlying hardware and software infrastructure, and may be vulnerable to issues or failures in those components. This means that you need to be prepared to manage and maintain the infrastructure in order to ensure the stability and reliability of your storage environment. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** There are several benefits for us to using a solution like StarWind Virtual SAN: - Improved availability: By creating a shared storage pool that is accessible to all hosts in a cluster, you can improve the availability of your virtualized environments. If one host goes down, the virtual machines on that host can be restarted on another host that has access to the shared storage. - Better performance: By using local storage resources on each host to create the shared storage pool, you can achieve better performance than you would with traditional storage arrays. This is because the data is stored locally, which reduces the distance the data has to travel and reduces latency. - Simplified storage management: With a software-defined storage solution like StarWind Virtual SAN, you can manage your storage from a single console, rather than having to manage multiple storage arrays. This can simplify storage management and reduce the number of vendor relationships you need to manage. - Reduced costs: By using local storage resources to create a shared storage pool, you can reduce the amount of expensive storage hardware you need to purchase. This can lead to significant cost savings. ### 46. Starwind Virtual SAN Amazing Product **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ayesh S. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** StarWind Virtual SAN gives adaptation to non-critical failure by repeating information across various servers in the group. This guarantees that information is generally accessible, even in case of a server disappointment. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Starwind virtual san management server interface is complex and also the customer support needs to improved. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** The performance of the current storage platform was a problem for our company, and the cost of the solution was also significant. We came to learn more about the starwind virtual san solution to assist our company in addressing performance and cost-effectiveness issues. Our company uses Starwind virtual SAN to help with the slowness problem and to deliver the High availability functionality. Since the majority of our services run on virtual platforms, the integration of the virtual SAN with the virtualization platforms helped us to reduce the problem. ### 47. StarWind VIrtual SAN **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 08, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The thing I like best about Starwind are the stability and high availablity of the product. We have been using StarWind exclusively for back end storage at our data center. We have had zero down time and great performance with StarWind **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** The one downside is that it is so flexible. Meaning that you have to plan out your installation ahead of time to get the most value. But StarWind support is great in helping out. And the flexibiliy is also a positive in that it enabled you to custom tailor the solution for your environment. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides an economical, yet highly available and high performing solution for our data center storage needs ### 48. Remarkable vSAN on a budget with extreme performance **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anthony R. | Sr. Systems Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 25, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** Easy to setup, configure, integrate and administrate in a short time. The customer support was quick and knowledgeable. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I have not found any lack in the product, at least for a small environment like us. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** I needed a SAN with many features at a budget cost. ### 49. I´ve succesfully implemented a pilot project in one of the biggests Hydroelectric Power Plant. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Francisco O. | Aerospacial Engineering, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2023 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** As mentioned, I´ve successfully implemented a pilot project in one of the world's most giant hydroelectric power plants, and it has an excellent performance as a stable and professional solution. That being said, a separate software from the VMWare Supervisory Package, gives us more flexibility regarding configuration and usage policies and allows you even to use a separate hardware to Store and Manage the SAN. So it is perfect for critical applications where stability and availability are essential. Using the StarWind Virtual SAN gave us a more stable and flexible solution. Also, I observed a continuous enhancement in the functionalities of the StarWind Virtual SAN, so its evolution is excellent. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** I experienced some events when StarWind is not "sure" about which image was the most recent one when the system is recovering from a complete shutdown requiring, sometimes, a manual intervention. Although I observed a great enhancement between the past and present versions, I think there are still some improvements to be made on how the software manages which images are the recent ones. For enlightenment, I used only two images, and I think it would have many benefits to use 3 images, including an enhancement in this case. So I think as it is improving everyday, it is not a bad thing at all. **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** The StarWind Virtual SAN allowed me to have great flexibility in creating a very critical system, where I could assemble a completely separately managed VSAN, but still linked and capable of operating with the VMWare Hypervisor. So I had a more robust and reliable system. ### 50. StarWind VSAN is a software-defined storage (SDS) solution that runs on commodity hardware. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Georgian M. | CTO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 22, 2022 **What do you like best about StarWind Virtual SAN?** It turns server disks and flash drives into a high-performance storage pool, providing scalable and cost-effective storage for virtualized environments. High availability and fault tolerance are also included with this solution, you only need 2 servers to get started, enabling you to create any type of HA cluster you can think of that requires shared storage, be it virtualization or sql server clusters. **What do you dislike about StarWind Virtual SAN?** You can opt for the free version and still get all the best features from the paid option, the only downside is that you need to configure everything with Powershell CLI; monitoring can still be done via the GUI regardless of the route you decide to take **What problems is StarWind Virtual SAN solving and how is that benefiting you?** StarWind Virtual SAN has improved our organization by allowing us to consolidate our storage infrastructure and reducing our overall costs. It has also allowed us to improve our performance and availability by providing us with a more scalable and flexible storage solution. It enabled us to bring reliability and high performance to SMB customers that can't afford expensive dedicated hardware for their storage needs. ## StarWind Virtual SAN Discussions - [Is StarWind Free?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-starwind-free) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What is virtual SAN in Hyper-V?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-virtual-san-in-hyper-v) - 1 comment - [How does StarWind virtual SAN work?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-does-starwind-virtual-san-work) - 1 comment - [View StarWind Virtual SAN pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/starwind-virtual-san/reviews?page=2§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-04+14%3A08%3A38+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=40e5dfec-3bf6-41ad-b4fe-7807d56d109f&secure%5Btoken%5D=f9c8017448fc9324003ee0ad94ecddda273f6a601ad860f78552f461c30abbcb&format=llm_user) ## StarWind Virtual SAN Integrations - [Microsoft Windows Server 2019 with HyperV](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-windows-server-2019-with-hyperv/reviews) - [Proxmox VE](https://www.g2.com/products/proxmox-ve/reviews) - [VMware vSphere](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-vsphere/reviews) - [Windows Server](https://www.g2.com/products/tidal-media-inc-windows-server/reviews) ## StarWind Virtual SAN Features **Core Functions** - Server Virtualization - Storage Virtualization - Network Virtualization **General Functionality** - Dynamic Scaling - High Availability - Data Security - Backup and Recovery **Configuration** - Appliance Independence - Hardware Integration **Agentic AI - Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions** - Autonomous Task Execution - Adaptive Learning - Decision Making ## Top StarWind Virtual SAN Alternatives - [Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)](https://www.g2.com/products/nutanix-cloud-infrastructure-nci/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (292 reviews) - [SC// HyperCore Virtualization Suite](https://www.g2.com/products/sc-hypercore-virtualization-suite/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (327 reviews) - [VMware vSAN](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-vsan/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (241 reviews)