StarWind Virtual SAN on Windows Server 2019
StarWind | 8.0.0.14398aWindows, Windows Server 2019 Base Windows Server 2019 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
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Big fan of Starwind. Support is great, though the support pricing model could be better.
What do you like best about the product?
It does what it's supposed to do. It keeps our storage highly available and the support has been exceptional when needed. They are easy to deal with on both the technical and service support side of the house.
What do you dislike about the product?
While reasonably priced, it would be nice if it was even more affordable. This day and age, every penny counts. Also, I once had to get emergency 24hour support added on. I paid for the support (a yearly rate) but it was only good until the next renewal (so just for a couple of months.) That wasn't great. That kind of support should be pro-rated or permitted to carry over.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
For us, we had a need to migrate from an older technology to something newer that was cheaper and easier to manage. Starwind solved that with a product that just works. It's most set it and forget it. But when support is required, they are excellent.
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StarWind vSAN is Solid Product at a Affordable Price with Fantastic Support!
What do you like best about the product?
I think the support is the best feature! Starwind hit a homerun ensuring that you have proper support whenever you require it! A huge part of the support I enjoy is you work with the same engineer while resolving your issues. For implementation, I did have another engineer assigned, but for any items that required an engineer, I always dealt with the same one making the process much smoother! The cost is unbelievable when considering what we are getting and the amount of support we have had. StarWind really went above and beyond to ensure our PoC was configured correctly and ready to go live!
Also, the price compared to similar offerings (VMWare vSAN, HCI solutions) fits much better within the budget giving us the same or similar performance!
Also, the price compared to similar offerings (VMWare vSAN, HCI solutions) fits much better within the budget giving us the same or similar performance!
What do you dislike about the product?
If you are attempting to install the free version of Starwind vSAN, you will find the documentation well written but lacking on a few levels. While I know it would be impossible to cover every gotcha and hardware choice, initially, when I attempted to do it, I make various mistakes and frustrations. (But once deciding to go with the pay versions, you open up the support and will be so thankful you did!) Would be nice to have additional training or videos on how best to test/maintain the product. While I have not had any major out-of-the-blue failures, it is always scary to think of that first time...fortunately, Support will be a huge safety net! (Yes, I tout support a lot in this review, but when working with many products where support is lacking unless paying a 3rd party, it is such a breath of fresh air!)
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Allowing us to ensure continuity of service in case of hardware failure while allowing us to grow when needed. While servers are typically solid, a failure can occur, with a three node vSAN cluster, I feel confident in case of failure of a single (or even two nodes) that business will be minimally impacted!
StarWind Virtual SAN review
What do you like best about the product?
the software is easy to configure and user friendly.
What do you dislike about the product?
some failover test case not working. e.g lan cable disconnect.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
StarWind Virtual SAN save cost as it only need 2 nodes for failover cluster.
Excellent vSAN for a limited IT deparment
What do you like best about the product?
Immediate redundancy and HA without a huge amount of configuration was ideal. The support they provided was even better - with proactive monitoring and efficient setup and configuration changes.
What do you dislike about the product?
Some of the new Hyperconverged tools seem basic as a single-pane of glass dashboard, but they are constantly looking at improvements and updates. The actual interface is somewhat cryptic, so we wouldn't know what configuration changes to make, but that is kind of the point - we have their full support and we don't have to staff a Level 5 engineer to make large configuration changes.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
This was a great implementation for a small to mid-size business! Allowed us to take advantage of all the Hyper-V features and live migrations without the expense of dedicated SANs. We can perform maintenance on either host during the day and the users don't even notice a difference in performance. We survived a couple of facility power outages but due to the redundancy of the entire host, the HCA failed over quickly and accurately with no downtime. Support also helps us improve our infrastructure with best practices of other organizations.
The best support and a great product
What do you like best about the product?
Fast and reliable storage and outstanding support.
What do you dislike about the product?
Relies on a virtual machine for management instead of integration. Not the end of the world.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We went from active-passive model from an active-passive one. This has resulted in us being in a much better position. It has allowed us to meet business continuity needs.
Great experience- 5 years up and running flawlessly.
What do you like best about the product?
It just works. I have never looked back after running my entire company on one small virtual SAN.
What do you dislike about the product?
Not much. I haven't had any problems. They are working on improving the console interface but I still like it.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I am always up. Updates, patches and reboots no longer require any downtime.
Easy to deploy, great support, great for 2 node only setup
What do you like best about the product?
We have not had many issues with Starwind deployments since we started selling their products as part of a failover solution to one of our partner's overall systems. We sold a few systems, and till now there were no issues related to Starwind. We deployed across multiple brands of servers, (Dell, HP, QCT) and there were very ok with our myriads of server designs and configurations.
Most of the issues are about hardware failures, and once the hardware is replaced and the configuration restored, we initiated the sync, and the system was back running without issues.
One big plus I think it is important, especially compared to products from the likes of HPE Storvirtual VSA, etc, is that Starwind allows you to use 2 nodes only deployment without having to use a witness, meaning I will save cost as I do not need a separate VM / share to host the witness and Starwind will still work. Most of our deployments are either on one rack or 2 racks at a different location, and they do not have the options to allow us to deploy the 3rd location for a witness.
Easy to set up. There is a free version with 30 days of GUI usage that you can try on, but you can learn 80-90% of the product capability within these 30 days. With the paid product, the support is good. They can either let you go solo, and help to check on the settings later to advise on things to improve, or they can take over the setup completely.
Performance is adequate for our usage.
Most of the issues are about hardware failures, and once the hardware is replaced and the configuration restored, we initiated the sync, and the system was back running without issues.
One big plus I think it is important, especially compared to products from the likes of HPE Storvirtual VSA, etc, is that Starwind allows you to use 2 nodes only deployment without having to use a witness, meaning I will save cost as I do not need a separate VM / share to host the witness and Starwind will still work. Most of our deployments are either on one rack or 2 racks at a different location, and they do not have the options to allow us to deploy the 3rd location for a witness.
Easy to set up. There is a free version with 30 days of GUI usage that you can try on, but you can learn 80-90% of the product capability within these 30 days. With the paid product, the support is good. They can either let you go solo, and help to check on the settings later to advise on things to improve, or they can take over the setup completely.
Performance is adequate for our usage.
What do you dislike about the product?
Not much. Slight improvements to the UI would do wonders, but it is more of nit-picking. Also licensing is by per TB for the lower end, although they give you 4TB from the start.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Dual node HA without a witness. So far Starwind Virtual SAN is the only product we used that is simple enough to deploy and works. Most of our deployment environment is based on dual rooms without a 3rd location to store witness nodes.
Excellent support
What do you like best about the product?
I run an MSP and have installed this solution at a number of our clients over the years. Each install has worked perfectly, stable for years without issue, and what impressed me most is the setup experience with the remote engineer creating a HA cluster on Windows within a few hours.
What do you dislike about the product?
I am not a fan of the pricing per TB model however I understand this is normal for the industry.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We were able to reduce our customers' OPEX and CAPEX on server hardware, along with reduced software licensing costs and support costs - what would normally be done over multiple servers has been consolidated onto a two node cluster. We have deployed this setup at many customer sites.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
StarWinds offers an easy to use and fast track solution to Hyper-converged high-availability cluster
Flexible Storage
What do you like best about the product?
I think finding that StarWind Virtual SAN was essentially hardware agnostic, allowing us to build out a specific hardware layer based upon the customers unique requirements was the most valuable feature of StarWind vSAN. It is a pleasant change to encounter a company who are willing to be flexible over an implementation utilising their product and varying slightly from their normal design specifications. They also helped us qualify the product against the customer's constantly changing requirements.
What do you dislike about the product?
There was nothing in particular which I disliked about the product. Performance metrics and insight could be improved upon a little. It would also be good if there was some tighter vCenter integration, specifically around reporting functionality.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Our customer had purchased hardware before us being consulted. They found themselves in a position of requiring stretched vSAN capabilities but not much budget to address this requirement. StarWind vSAN addressed this requirement directly.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Go with StarWind's design recommendations. Also, if you have the opportunity you should get StarWind to assist in the implementation.
Starwind VSAN: Inexpensive, Robust, Reliable Solution for HCI Shared Storage
What do you like best about the product?
I work in a small shop environment that needed an inexpensive solution for a high availability, two node, clustered Hyper-V back end for all our on premise services. The initial options for shared storage for our nodes consisted of S2D from Microsoft, and various hardware DAS units. S2D was immediately dismissed due to the 4 node requirement, and most all DAS units in our storage capacity targets were out of our budget. Not to mention the DAS could become a single point of failure for the entire setup.
Enter Starwind. I was initially concerned about performance issues, but lacking any other great alternatives, and a low cost of entry, we decided to give it a try.
Their documentation for initial configuration and setup, while not necessarily 100% thorough, is as good or better than any I've seen. I got through 99% of the setup with a very good understanding of the config concepts and actual real world configuration for our particular environment. Their support was also very helpful in validating our network and node-to-node connectivity design plan. Once our design plan was vetted, it didn't take more than a couple of days to be fully up and running.
Our Starwind VSAN has been bullet proof. We've had ZERO issues with it since it's been built out almost 4 years ago. This is not an exaggeration. I find it almost ridiculous that it's been so rock-solid. Re-synchronization times between nodes after full power outages are lengthy, but I think that is a small price to pay, and it has never impacted our ability to get back up and running quickly.
Ongoing maintenance for the VSAN is next to nil. Aside from the periodic Starwind updates, and maybe checking re-sync after full outages, I almost never have to even think about Starwind. It's just there, and it works.
Enter Starwind. I was initially concerned about performance issues, but lacking any other great alternatives, and a low cost of entry, we decided to give it a try.
Their documentation for initial configuration and setup, while not necessarily 100% thorough, is as good or better than any I've seen. I got through 99% of the setup with a very good understanding of the config concepts and actual real world configuration for our particular environment. Their support was also very helpful in validating our network and node-to-node connectivity design plan. Once our design plan was vetted, it didn't take more than a couple of days to be fully up and running.
Our Starwind VSAN has been bullet proof. We've had ZERO issues with it since it's been built out almost 4 years ago. This is not an exaggeration. I find it almost ridiculous that it's been so rock-solid. Re-synchronization times between nodes after full power outages are lengthy, but I think that is a small price to pay, and it has never impacted our ability to get back up and running quickly.
Ongoing maintenance for the VSAN is next to nil. Aside from the periodic Starwind updates, and maybe checking re-sync after full outages, I almost never have to even think about Starwind. It's just there, and it works.
What do you dislike about the product?
The one downside to Starwind's VSAN might be their scalability. If we needed to add more nodes for compute power, or scale out storage significantly, I'm not sure how easy that would be. We're a small shop though, and thought out our initial design to last us through at least 6-8 years of growth. Our general trajectory has us outsourcing more and more services instead of hosting them, so I'm not terribly worried about that. If we ever outgrow this solution, I'm pretty sure it will be well after the expected lifetime of our hardware.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Starwind VSAN provided us a budget friendly shared storage solution that has proven to be extremely robust and reliable. The only downtime we've experienced since building out our clustered HA Hyper-V solution has been due to total power failure. Starwind requires little to no ongoing maintenance, and I rarely have to even think about it. It simply works.
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