We performed a comparison between DataCore SANsymphony and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."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 fact that I can now count on a true failover solution is what is most appealing."
"It has great free trials that allow end users to test a large variety of their products before deciding to buy the full product."
"Having the ability to migrate machines live in our environment was made possible by this software."
"Without the need for any downtime, enterprises can simply grow their storage infrastructure using StarWind Virtual SAN by adding new servers or disks to the current infrastructure."
"You can build cheap, reliable, replicated virtual machines clusters using simple servers with an all flash disk or SAS\SATA hybrid tiered by performance storage."
"The most valuable feature is the reliable storage replication, which enables me to create a robust infrastructure to run our business."
"StarWind support has been great in helping resolve other issues not caused by their software."
"Auto-tiering to obtain performance at a lower cost without the customer having to purchase ultra-fast storage is great."
"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."
"The documentation repository is really useful and kept updated."
"I found the solution to be very stable."
"During the maintenance periods, on any part of the storage or VMware migration, we have had no downtime."
"Good security with this solution."
"The most useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."
"It is a well-proven, automated management tool in all dynamic provisioning, auto-tiering, great performance, parallel I/O, cache speed mechanism, etc."
"Live migration between nodes was quick and simple."
"Servers came pre-configured for our environment and as soon as they were in the rack, Starwind got them up and running."
"The hardware footprint is great. We've got two 2U servers which replaced four 2U servers. Granted, they were about three years old at that point, but we actually increased our processing capacity by about 50 percent while keeping our storage capacity about the same. We've actually been able to downgrade to a half rack from a full rack because we've gotten rid of some of our network equipment and some of our additional storage arrays."
"The redundancy of two identical nodes that can run alone allows us to have truly "no single point of failure" in our computing and primary storage infrastructure."
"High-availability is what I bought it for."
"With StarWind's Proactive monitoring we can go about our day helping our customers and not have to worry about our cluster's health."
"Customer service has been excellent. Any questions we have had have been answered quickly."
"The initial setup seems to be very straightforward."
"Scaling the product is fairly easy except for the computing aspect. It would entail another appliance. While not a show stopper, it isn't as easy as dropping in a few extra SSDs."
"I wish there was online support because email return takes a long time and a faster solution should be found."
"vSAN's free version does not have a graphical user interface."
"There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA."
"The console is something that I feel could be improved. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it can be jazzed up and/or made to be a little more intuitive."
"The Command Center, a free guest VM for management and monitoring, leaves something to be desired. It could have more accurate real-time information and better reporting visuals, which seem to be an afterthought."
"StarWind currently has a Windows native application that it uses for management. There is not a web-based GUI at this time."
"StarWind really needs to market its product more."
"I would like to see SMPA (Shared Multi-Port Array) technology developed with the aim of allowing a configuration identical to other storage arrays."
"I'd like to see the company make the renewal of the software cheaper."
"The cost is becoming prohibitive since they moved to a subscription model."
"Unified storage (all block, objects, and files) should be in a single storage pool with unified storage concepts, hence providing the user with whatever they want."
"The solution could be better packaged and marketed."
"Its interface could be better."
"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."
"DataCore SANsymphony should integrate file servers at a good price into the solution."
"We ran into some issues with going from Hyper-V 2012 R2 to Hyper-V 2019."
"The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss."
"In the future, it would be nice to be able to migrate from the Windows vSAN to the Linux vSAN without having to do a full restore from backups."
"At the moment, the initial configuration is very technical and error-prone. That is the reason Starwind does it for you as a service, which is a great thing. But it would be nice if we could change or rearrange storage assignments ourselves."
"I think some performance metrics would be nice to see, especially on the storage side."
"Perhaps the initial configuration and documentation could be a little clearer and simpler to follow."
"We'd like an easier setup for Windows updates on the Hyper-V servers so you don't have to use a script to ensure auto-updating is done."
"Product shipments did have a few bumps along the way, but that's to be expected when using any shipping company."
More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Pricing and Cost Advice →
DataCore SANsymphony is ranked 4th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 54 reviews while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is ranked 5th in Software Defined Storage (SDS) with 65 reviews. DataCore SANsymphony is rated 9.2, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is rated 9.6. The top reviewer of DataCore SANsymphony writes "Robust with good replication and access protection ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance writes "Straightforward to use with good remote management and a simple GUI". DataCore SANsymphony is most compared with VMware vSAN, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage, StorMagic SvSAN and VxRail, whereas StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is most compared with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VMware vSAN, Dell PowerFlex, VxRail and StorMagic SvSAN. See our DataCore SANsymphony vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report.
See our list of best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors and best HCI vendors.
We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
