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TECHNICALITIES

System Requirements

To ensure the promised performance and stability, the systems running StarWind solutions must meet the minimum system requirements that are listed below.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO RUN STARWIND

StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN)

CPU
  • Minimum of 4x vCPUs, each at 1.7 GHz (when deployed as CVM)
  • Minimum of 1x physical CPU at 1.7 GHz (when deployed as a Windows application)
RAM
  • Minimum: 8 GB of RAM
  • Default: 16 GB of RAM
  • For RAM caching, ensure an appropriate amount of additional memory is allocated.
Network interfaces
  • “Heartbeat” failover strategy:
    • 2x dedicated StarWind VSAN network interfaces (1x Replication network, 1x Data network)
    • 1x dedicated Management network interface
  • “Node Majority” failover strategy:
    • 2x dedicated StarWind VSAN network interfaces (1x Replication network, 1x Data network)
    • 1x dedicated Management network interface (Management + Witness)
Note: At least one Heartbeat interface must be on a separate network adapter and redundant
Network Bandwidth
  • Replication network bandwidth: 1 GbE or higher
  • Replication network latency: <5 ms
Supported hypervisor versions
  • VMware vSphere (ESXi): 7 or later
  • Windows Server (Hyper-V): 2016 or later
  • oVirt/OLVM/RHV: 4.4 or later
  • Proxmox VE 7.4 or later
Storage
  • 30 GB Virtual Disk reserved for OS (when deployed as CVM). The StarWind devices (LUNs) must reside on the separate storage device or partition from a StarWind CVM virtual disk.
  • For optimal performance, virtual disks for the VSAN Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) must be thick-provisioned, or the entire HBA/RAID controller must be passed through to the CVM. Read more in the KB article.
  • For recommended RAID settings, please read the KB article.

StarWind Virtual HCI Appliance (VHCI)

Supported cluster configurations:
  • 2-node cluster witness-less (Heartbeat);
  • 2-node cluster with a witness node (Node Majority);
  • 3-node cluster (Heartbeat or Node Majority);
  • GRID (Heartbeat or Node Majority).
Software requirements Minimal Optimal
CPU
Architecture X86-64
Frequency 1.7 2.1 or higher
Cores
For Hyper-V (per-node) 1 or higher 2 or higher
For Hyper-V (per-node) 2 or higher 4 or higher
vCPU
For vSphere (per-node) 2 4
RAM/vRAM 4 GB 8 GB
Network ports
  • For Heartbeat:
    2 x StarWind dedicated (4 x StarWind dedicated in case of 3-node cluster)
    1 x Management
  • For Node Majority:
    1 x StarWind dedicated
    1 x iSCSI dedicated
    1 x Management
Network Bandwidth 1 GbE 10 GbE or higher
Supported Operating Systems (Hypervisors)* Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022 w/ Hyper-V. Standard or Datacenter;
VMware vSphere 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, 8.0. Any update
Network Latency Less than 5 ms Less than 2 ms
Storage**
For Hyper-V (per-node) 3 GB for installed software
For Hyper-V (per-node) 16 GB (Thin VMDK)
A separate array for data storage recommended
StarWind Command Center (Cluster management – Optional) Minimal Optimal
vCPU 2 4
vRAM 4 GB 8 GB
Network ports 1 x External Virtual Switch Connection
Storage 50 GB (Dynamic VHDX)
Recommended Hardware Configuration Minimal Optimal
Server Vendor Any
Server Form Factor Rack, Tower, Edge
TPM Optional Recommended
CPU CPU
Architecture X86-64
Vendor AMD or Intel
RAM Configuration Near Balanced Balanced
Number of Sockets 1 2 or higher
Storage
Controllers Redundant or not redundant OS partition;
Single controller for OS and Main storage arrays allowed
Redundant OS partition;
Separate controllers for OS and Main storage arrays are highly recommended
Storage Media SAS/SATA HDD; SAS/SATA SSD SAS/SATA SSD; NVMe
Recommended Vendors WD DC for HDD; Intel, Micron,
KIOXIA for SSD
Intel, Micron, KIOXIA for SSD;
Solidigm, Micron, and KIOXIA for NVMe
Networking
Throughput 1 GbE or higher 10 GbE or higher
Type Ethernet
Number of NICs 2, where: 1 x for Management; 1 x for StarWind
Recommended Vendor Broadcom, Intel for Management;
Intel, Mellanox for StarWind
Intel for Management; Mellanox for StarWind
PSU Single PSU Dual, Hot-Plug, Redundant PSU
GPU Any
BMC Any Edition Enterprise or alternative

Important notice: The final hardware configuration should include actual infrastructure needs (client services and VMs) and minimal or optimal configurations of the software described above. To calculate the actual needs of existing infrastructure, StarWind highly recommends the following infrastructure assessment tools – Veeam ONE or Live Optics.

StarWind SAN & NAS

CPU Minimum 4 virtual 1.7 GHz processors reserved
If using ZFS pools, 8 virtual 1.7 GHz processors reserved
RAM 4GB
If using cache, an appropriate amount of RAM should be assigned
If using ZFS pools, at least 16GB of RAM should be assigned
Network 2x network interfaces (1xManagement and 1xiSCSI/Data traffic)
At least one Heartbeat interface must be on a separate network adapter and redundant
Network Bandwidth iSCSI/Data traffic: Minimum 1 GbE or higher
Latency requirements: <5 ms
Hypervisor*
  • VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi version: 6.5 or later
  • Microsoft Hyper-V server: 2016 or later
Storage
  • 20 GB Virtual Disk reserved for OS. The StarWind virtual disks must reside on a partition that is separate from the StarWind installation disk.
  • All Virtual Disks are recommended to be Thick Provision Eager Zeroed or the entire HBA/RAID controller must be passed through to the Virtual Machine.
  • Supported direct-attached storage configurations:
  • Passthrough Hardware RAID Controller Passthrough Host Bus Adapter Attach VMDK disks based on top of Datastore Attach Physical disks via RDM
  • * StarWind SAN & NAS can be deployed on top of your hypervisor or directly on bare metal (no hypervisor required).
  • For recommended RAID settings, please, read the KB article.

StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL)

CPU
  • Minimum of 4x vCPUs, each at 1.7 GHz (when deployed as VM).
  • Minimum of 8x vCPUs, each at 1.7 GHz (when deployed as VM with ZFS pools).
  • Minimum of 1x 1.7 GHz physical CPU (when deployed bare-metal using Linux ISO or as a Windows application).
RAM
  • Minimum: 8 GB of RAM.
  • If using ZFS pools, at least 16GB of RAM should be assigned.
Network interfaces
  • 1x dedicated Data network interface.
  • 1x dedicated Management network interface.
Network Bandwidth
  • Data network bandwidth: 100 MbE or higher.
  • Data network latency: <100 ms.
Storage
  • 30 GB virtual disk is reserved for OS (when deployed as VM or as a bare-metal ISO). The VTL devices must reside on the separate storage device or partition from the OS disk.
  • For optimal performance, virtual disks must be thick-provisioned, or the entire HBA/RAID controller must be passed through (when deployed as VM). Read more in the KB article.
  • For recommended RAID settings, please read the KB article.
Supported hypervisor versions
  • VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi version: 6.5 or later.
  • Windows Server (Hyper-V): 2016 or later.
  • oVirt/OLVM/RHV: 4.4 or later.
  • Proxmox VE 7.4 or later.
Supported backup software
  • ArcServe Backup 18.0.
  • Commvault (9.0 – 11.20).
  • EMC NetWorker (7.6 – 19.2).
  • IBM i 7.1 or later.
  • HP DataProtector (7.x – 9.0).
  • Microsoft DPM* (2012 – 2019).
  • Unitrends (9.1 – 10).
  • Veeam Backup & Replication (9.0 – 12.1).
  • Veritas BackupExec (12.x – 20.6).
  • Veritas NetBackup (6.x – 8.3).
  • IMPORTANT: BIOS (Legacy boot mode) is required for bare-metal or VM deployment using Linux ISO. UEFI support will be added in a future release.
  • Microsoft DPM 2016 may require additional tweaks due to known connection stability issues with LTO Tape Libraries.
  • IMPORTANT: To ensure ransomware resiliency, the VTL should be located on dedicated storage/host that is isolated from the production environment. Please read the following document for details: Backing up StarWind Virtual SAN Environment: Best Practice.

StarWind Management Console

CPU Minimum one 1 GHz processor
RAM 256MB
Network 1 NIC interface
Network Bandwidth Minimum 100 MbE or higher
Supported OS Server OS: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2; 2012; 2012 R2; 2016; 2019; 2022
Desktop OS: Windows 7; 8; 8.1; 10
Storage 256 МВ disk space reserved for installation and logging

IMPORTANT NOTE: Windows Server Core or Microsoft Hyper-V Server as a base OS is incompatible with the StarWind Management Console local installation. In this case, StarWind Management Console should be installed on any other computer. Please note that for remote management with default settings, port 3261 must be open..

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