Starwind vSAN

StarWind vSAN is a software-defined storage solution that virtualizes and pools the storage resources of multiple servers into a shared storage pool. It creates a virtual storage area network (SAN) to provide high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments.

Installing Starwind

Download the installer on Starwind Official Page, then deploy the 2 OVAs as usual

Then access the Web UI using the DHCP-obtained addresses

Go to Networking, configure 3 interfaces for Management, Heartbeat, and Replication

Configuring Starwind Management Console

Next, go to a Windows machine and install the Starwind Management Console

Apply the license obtained from Starwind

And the Management Console is up, select Add Server to add the Starwind nodes

Select connect on both nodes, and apply the license

Attaching Storage

Here we add a new disk with the size of 20 GB

Back on Starwind Web UI, select the newly attached disk

Select Format

Select the type and mount point

Now the disk is mounted

Configuring vSAN

Now back on the Management Console, configure the Storage Pool Path using the newly mounted disk

Next select the Server1, click Add Device (advanced)

Device type, select virtual

Select create new, assign name and size

For the block size, select 4096 for windows clients

Then create new target for the iSCSI connection

Then create the device

Then open the newly created storage, select Replication Manager to create a replication to the second node

Select the replication mode

Then input the address of the second node

Select the failover strategy

Then select create new partner

Select the location

Then configure the interface for synchronization and heartbeat

Then select the synchronization inizialitation mode

Then the creation should be done

Opening the Replicatio Manager again, we can see that both storage are synced

Attaching iSCSI Storage to Windows Machine

First, to enable load-balancing, install the Multipath I/O Feature

Then open MPIO Properties and select Add Support for iSCSI Devices

Now open iSCSI Initiator, on the Discovery tab put the servers’ IP Addresses as the target portals

Then on Targets, select connect on both

Now we can see both are connected

And if we open the Disk Manager, we can see the iSCSI Disk is attached