Hyperconvergence Trailblazer

StarWind released its product called Native SAN (later rebranded to Virtual SAN) as far back as 2011, and VMware followed with their own Virtual SAN solving the same issue and using pretty much the same architecture only in 2014. Later, in 2015, StarWind executed a successful "pivot shift" from a software-only company to becoming a hardware vendor and brought Enterprise-level Hyperconvergence to SMB and ROBO. The new HyperConverged Appliance allows the company to tap into the “long tail” of the hyperconvergence market, thanks to its simplicity and cost-efficiency.

StarWind reinforced its position in the market by releasing two more hardware products in 2016: Backup Appliance and Storage Appliance. Both products are storage platforms targeting two different scenarios. StarWind Backup Appliance is purpose-built for backup and Disaster Recovery, having high capacity with enough compute power for the role. StarWind Storage Appliance is a high-performance platform, fitting the role of primary storage, capable of taking on virtually any workload of Small and Medium Businesses and even smaller Enterprises.

In 2016, StarWind incorporated all the latest technologies into the appliances, in order to keep them up to date. The company was the first to incorporate a high-end HDD-sized cloud gateway into its hardware products. Such a built-in component allows the user to utilize public cloud, like Microsoft Azure or AWS, as an extra storage tier. Also, StarWind Virtual SAN and, consequently, all StarWind hardware-based products are now compatible with "future storage technologies", like RDMA-capable iSER, SMB Direct protocols, and the ultra-performing NVMe over Fabrics.