I've been diving into StarWind recently and I've come across a lot of praise for it in this forum, but most of the comments are dated. I'm hoping to hear from current or recently former customers about their experiences with StarWind. They were acquired by DataCore earlier this year, but I'm curious if anyone has noticed any negative changes in support or service quality since then.
We're gearing up for an infrastructure refresh next year. Right now, we have three end-of-life Dell hosts, an external Dell SAN, two BC fiber channel switches, and we're running VMware alongside Citrix VDI. I know there was a discussion about people moving away from VMware (I've raised my hand too). A few folks mentioned considering Nutanix, but the costs are pretty steep for our small setup, especially when it comes to maintenance. On the other hand, StarWind offers a two-node cluster at about a third of the price with three years of support included.
We're also thinking about using Hyper-V instead of Proxmox since we operate largely in a Microsoft environment with hybrid Azure. I'm not sure if StarWind supports Azure locally, but that's not a dealbreaker for us. The main goal is to replace our outdated hardware with something comparable without overspending.
2 Answers
It really depends on how much of the original StarWind team remains after the DataCore acquisition. From what I've found, the due diligence on DataCore isn't very reassuring, particularly with their partnerships with companies like Huawei and Lenovo, and their development team based in India. This raises concerns about maintaining the quality and service StarWind traditionally offered. However, I still think Proxmox is a better option over Hyper-V if you are a Microsoft shop.
I've been with StarWind for a decade and have set up multiple clusters with them. Overall, my experience has been fantastic; I've never faced any issues. As for the DataCore acquisition, it hasn't affected StarWind negatively in my experience—everything remains consistent and intact.
That’s awesome to hear! Which hypervisor are you currently using with StarWind?