System Requirements

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

StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) for Hyper-V

CPU Minimum one physical 1.7 GHz processor

RAM 4GB
If using cache or Asynchronous Replication, an appropriate amount of RAM should be added

Network Heartbeat failover strategy:

2x network interfaces (1xStarWind Synchronization and 1xiSCSI traffic/Heartbeat) + 1x network
interface (Management/Heartbeat)
At least one Heartbeat interface must be on a separate network adapter and redundant

Node Majority failover strategy:

2x network interfaces (1xStarWind Synchronization and 1xiSCSI traffic) + 1x network interface
(Management/Witness node)

Network Synchronous Replication: M inimum 1 GbE or higher

Bandwidth Latency requirements: < 5 ms
Asynchronous Replication: M inimum 100 MbE or higher. The data link must be capable
to transmit the replicated amount of data within the desired backup window

OS Supported Windows Server version: 2 012 or later

Storage 3 GB disk space reserved for installation and logging. The StarWind virtual disks must reside
on the separate partition from the StarWind installation disk

Hardware RAID controller i s highly recommended

Microsoft Storage Spaces i s supported

Asynchronous Replication: The storage with replication journals on the primary server
should have higher or equal write performance in comparison with the production storage
array (on 100% sequential write with 8MB block size). The space reserved for the journal disk
must exceed the amount of data written to the production storage array within the time
frame between snapshots plus extra 25%

Software RAID implementations are NOT supported. For recommended RAID settings, please, read the KB article.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Server with LSFS devices and Data Recovery (DR) server (in case of Asynchronous Replication) should
fit the LSFS device requirements.

System Requirements 1
StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) for vSphere
CPU Minimum 4 virtual 1.7 GHz processors reserved

RAM 4GB
If using cache, an appropriate amount of RAM should be assigned

Network Heartbeat failover strategy:

2x network interfaces (1xStarWind Synchronization and 1xiSCSI traffic/Heartbeat)

+ 1x network interface (Management/Heartbeat)

At least one Heartbeat interface must be on a separate network adapter

and redundant

Node Majority failover strategy:

2x network interfaces (1xStarWind Synchronization and 1xiSCSI traffic)

+ 1x network interface (Management/Witness node)

Network Bandwidth Synchronous Replication: Minimum 1 GbE or higher

Latency requirements: <5 ms

Hypervisor Supported vSphere version: 5.5 or later

Storage 20 GB Virtual Disk reserved for OS. The StarWind virtual disks must reside
on the separate partition from the StarWind installation disk

All Virtual Disks must be Thick Provision Eager Zeroed or the entire HBA/RAID
controller must be passed through to the Virtual Machine

For recommended RAID settings, please, read the KB article.

System Requirements 2
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 Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022 w/ Hyper-V. Standard or Datacenter;
Systems (Hypervisors)* VMware vSphere 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, 8.0. Any update

System Requirements 3
 Software requirements Minimal Optimal

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) For Hyper-V (per-node) 16 GB (Thin VMDK)

A separate array for data storage recommended

* StarWind vSAN is a certified storage provider for VMware and Windows Server with Hyper-V.

** Supported RAID configurations for main data storage you can find here.

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

System Requirements 4
 Recommended Hardware
Configuration Minimal Optimal

CPU

Architecture X86-64

Vendor Vendor AMD or Intel

RAM Configuration Near Balanced Balanced

Number of Sockets 1 2 or higher

Storage

Controllers Redundant or not redundant OS Redundant OS partition;

partition;
Separate controllers for OS and
Single controller for OS and Main Main storage arrays are highly
storage arrays allowed recommended

Storage Media SAS/SATA HDD; SAS/SATA SSD;

SAS/SATA SSD NVMe

Recommended WD DC for HDD; Intel, Micron, Intel, Micron, KIOXIA for SSD; Solidigm,
Vendors KIOXIA for SSD 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 for Management;

Intel, Mellanox for StarWind Mellanox for StarWind

PSU Single PSU Dual, Hot-Plug, Redundant PSU

GPU Any

BMC Any Edition Enterprise or alternative

IMPORTANT NOTE: 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.

System Requirements 5
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 Synchronous Replication: 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.

System Requirements 6
StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL)
CPU Minimum one 1.7 GHz processor

RAM 4GB

Network 1 NIC interface (VTL traffic) + 1 NIC (Management)

Network Minimum 100 MbE or higher

Bandwidth Latency requirements: 1 00 ms or less

Hypervisor Supported Windows Server version: 2012 or later

Storage 3 GB disk space reserved for installation and logging. The StarWind virtual disks
must reside on the separate partition from StarWind installation disk

Supported Acronis Backup (10 – 12.5) IBM TSM & Spectrum Protect (6.2.2 – 8.1.11)
Backup
ArcServe Backup (11.5 – 17) HP DataProtector (7.x – 9.0)

ArcServe UDP (5.x – 7.0) Microsoft DPM* (2012 – 2019)

Bacula (9.2.0 – 9.6.6) Veeam Backup & Replication (9.0 – 11.0)

Commvault (9.0 – 11.20) Veritas/Symantec BackupExec (12.x – 20.6)

EMC AVAMAR (via ADMe) (6.1 – 7.5) Veritas/Symantec NetBackup (6.x – 8.3)

EMC NetWorker (7.6 – 19.2) Quest NetVault Backup (12.x – 13.x)

* Microsoft DPM 2016 may require additional tweaks due known connection stability issues with LTO Tape Libraries.

Software RAID implementations are NOT supported. For recommended RAID settings, please, read the KB article.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to fit the ransomware resiliency, the VTL should be located on the dedicated storage/host
which must be isolated from the production environment. Please read the following document for details: Backing up
StarWind Virtual SAN Environment: Best Practice.

System Requirements 7
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 56 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.

System Requirements 8
Contacts
Phone number Customer Support Portal
+1 617 449 7717 www.starwind.com/support
+44 203 769 1857
Support Forum
+49 800 100 6826 www.starwind.com/forums

Sales
Fax sales@starwind.com
+1 617 507 5845
General Information:
info@starwind.com

Voice Mail
+1 866 790 2646 To learn more, visit

www.starwind.com

©2023, StarWind Software Inc. All rights reserved System Requirements 9