StarWind Virtual SAN Free

VS.
StarWind Virtual SAN
StarWind Virtual SAN is an entirely software-based solution capable of clustering commodity servers
into a fault-tolerant and highly-available virtual storage pool. Basically, it mirrors internally mounted
DAS between physical hosts using Ethernet for data synchronization. Its a Windows-based application
that runs on top of the hypervisor requiring neither dedicated storage hardware, nor any specialized
management skills. StarWind Virtual SAN completely eliminates any need for an expensive SAN, NAS
or other physical shared storage.

Free VS. Commercial

StarWind Virtual SAN Free is essential for cases like test and development, where budgets are often
empty. At literally no expense and with reduced hardware requirements, it still offers fault-tolerance
and high availability. In addition, it can be upgraded to scalable paid version with ease.
The following chart points out the differences between StarWind Virtual SAN Free and the full
commercial version.
Features

StarWind Virtual SAN Free

StarWind Virtual SAN

Licensed Nodes

1, 2*

1, 2, 3, , infinity!

Served Capacity

unlimited

unlimited

Corporate forum discussion

Phone support, email support,

Premium 24/7 support option,
corporate forum discussion,
professional installation services.

RAM and Flash cache, in-line deduplication,

Log-Structured File System, Synchronous Replication
Asynchronous replication, Virtual Tape Library **

Support

* The 1-node installation of StarWind Virtual SAN Free runs on a stand-alone host and is distributed freely.
2-node version goes hyper-converged, sharing the same hardware with hypervisor. Its distribution depends on
the utilized hypervisor:

2-node version for VMware vSphere is distributed freely;

2-node version for Microsoft Hyper-V is given to Microsoft MVPs, MCTs and MCPs.
** StarWind VTL is licensed separately.

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