Home > IT Answers > Storage > Has anyone used StarWind iSCSI for production network? What about its reliability and performance?
ITKE
16,755 pts.
 Has anyone used StarWind iSCSI for production network? What about its reliability and performance?
iSCSI, SAN, Storage in 2010, Thin provisioning
StarWind claims to turn any standard server into a fault-tolerant, fail-safe Windows iSCSI target SAN. Compared to EMC and Netapp products, where does it stand in term of performance & reliability (e.g. assuming new & stable server)? Has anyone deployed it on production? What kind of hardware do you use/recommend (e.g. Dell R410 etc)? Can StarWind support advanced features like deduplication & thin replication?

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ASKED: June 22, 2010  5:13 PM
UPDATED: August 26, 2010  9:45 AM
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I've used Starwind only in a test environment running on a single box (HP Server). I would not feel comfortable running production servers with this software-based iSCSI San. HP LeftHand Networks is another software-based iSCSI San that runs on standard x86 hardware but it does provide the redudancy and scalability you would want in a "san" solution. I prefer hardware-based properiery hardware for the fact of performance and integration to major components like Exchange, VMware, SQL, Oracle, etc. Starwind does support thin provisioning in the newest version, as well as data replication so that you can have a highly available solution using block level replication between two seperate storage servers.
Last Wiki Answer Submitted:  June 23, 2010  8:40 pm  by  Aguacer0   8,120 pts.
All Answer Wiki Contributors:  Aguacer0   8,120 pts.
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ITKE
 16,755 pts.
 

I use StarWind HA in production and think it’s a wonderful product however their support is horrendous. Apparently they only have one person, Bob Boule, providing support and although he makes his cell phone number available to you, he never answers it. Leave a message with him or an e-mail and you can expect him to return it a couple days later.

Dannyboy08
 10 pts.
 

We are glad that you are pleased with our software.
Unfrotonatelly last few days we had some problems with support in US office, but now they all were fixed. Moreover, if you have any questions you can send them to support@starwindsoftware.com, and not only to Bob directly, and our EMEA support team will be glad to help you!

ConstantinV
 10 pts.