This release introduces a new Debian 13.7-based foundation for StarWind Virtual SAN and provides a migration path for existing Ubuntu- and CentOS-based deployments. The new VM-based update mechanism moves existing VSAN nodes to the Debian-based appliance while retaining existing VSAN configuration and storage.

Migration is performed offline, one node at a time. The configuration is exported from the existing appliance and imported into a newly deployed Debian-based appliance.

The release also continues to improve NVMe-oF HA reliability and split-brain handling, expands Web Management Console functionality and reliability, extends XCP-ng support, improves Proxmox and vCenter integration, and includes security updates for the new Debian 13.7 base.

A New Debian 13 Foundation

StarWind Virtual SAN now uses a Debian 13.7-based appliance platform, providing a modern foundation for VSAN storage, management, monitoring, and networking, together with the latest available security updates.

Highlights

• StarWind Virtual SAN is now based on Debian 13.7, providing a current and supported operating-system foundation for the VSAN appliance across management, storage, monitoring, networking, and virtualization integration components.
• Introduced UEFI-only boot for the new VM templates.
• Updated VMware VM templates to virtual hardware version 20.
• Updated Hyper-V VM templates to use Generation 2 virtual machines.
• Disabled Secure Boot in the provided VM templates.

Offline Migration with VM-Based Update

Existing StarWind Virtual SAN deployments can now migrate from the previous Ubuntu- or CentOS-based appliance to the Debian 13.7-based platform using the new VM-based update mechanism. The update preserves the existing deployment and storage configuration, avoiding the need to rebuild storage or recreate the VSAN environment.

Highlights

• Added a VM-based update mechanism for migrating existing Ubuntu- and CentOS-based VSAN appliances to the new Debian 13.7-based platform.
• Added support for migrating existing storage pools, including pools created on disks without a partition table.
• Data and Replication network interface roles are now preserved during migration.
• Backup volume classification and ownership are now preserved during migration.
• Storage pool layouts and volume mount states are now preserved during migration.
• User roles are now preserved during the update process.

NVMe-oF Target HA and Reliability Improvements

This release continues to improve the reliability of the NVMe-oF target, with particular focus on HA synchronization, split-brain handling, and recovery. These changes apply to the NVMe-oF target appliance component and are separate from the Windows NVMe-oF Initiator, which follows its own release cycle.

Highlights

• Fixed a split-brain state that could persist on one node even after its partner was marked synchronized.
• Improved HA synchronization and split-brain handling for more reliable cluster operation.
• Fixed crash dump files being written to the wrong location instead of the system crash-dump path.
• Improved handling of HA LUN creation, deletion, and HA partner operations.
• Added service crash-dump collection to support bundles for the NVMe-oF target.

Web Management Console Improvements

This release includes a broad set of improvements to the Web Management Console, covering LUN management, licensing, storage pools, disk management, and user configuration.

General UI improvements and fixes

• Improved HA and NVMe-oF LUN management and status reporting.
• Improved LUN creation, deletion, and partner management operations.
• Fixed VSAN Free license enforcement so that capacity limits, expiration, and HA restrictions are applied correctly.
• Improved ZFS and MDADM storage pool rebuild and disk-replacement handling.
• Added static, predictable names for single-disk storage pools.
• Improved disk and pool naming consistency.
• Improved UI/UX consistency across the Manage LUN, Edit User, and Manage File Share dialogs.

Virtual SAN (VSAN) build 20104

Improvements and fixes

• Fixed a memory leak in the core storage engine that could cause the active node to crash after a restart under sustained load.
• Updated the Loopback Accelerator Driver signature.

Virtualization Platform & Integration Updates

Platform support

• Expanded support for the XCP-ng hypervisor.
• Expanded support for the new Debian-based VSAN appliance across supported virtualization environments.

Proxmox and vCenter

• Improved HBA rescan support for Proxmox environments using restricted non-root users.
• Improved vCenter Plugin deployment and login with Debian-based VSAN appliances.

Hyper-V and Windows Server

• Fixed SR-IOV network interface assignment issues on Windows Server 2025.

Security

• Mitigated Copy Fail & Dirty Frag vulnerabilities.
• Installed the latest available security updates for the validated Debian 13.7 base.

This release introduces General Availability (GA) for NVMe-oF (NVMe over Fabrics) protocol support in StarWind Virtual SAN. The release focuses on production readiness of NVMe-oF HA storage, expanded Web Management capabilities, HA engine stabilization, virtualization platform support improvements, and multiple fixes for iSCSI devices.

NVMe-oF LUNs — General Availability

StarWind Virtual SAN now provides production-ready support for Standalone and HA NVMe-oF LUNs with integrated Web Management, HA orchestration, synchronization management, and split-brain detection capabilities.

Highlights

• Added General Availability for Standalone and HA NVMe-oF LUN configurations. Currently, only Heartbeat failover strategy is supported for NVMe-oF HA LUNs.
• Added compatibility with VMware vSphere, Microsoft Windows Server, Proxmox VE, and NVMe/TCP-compatible platforms.
• Any NVMe, SATA, and SAS SSDs, HDDs, software RAID, and hardware RAID configurations can be used as underlying storage for NVMe-oF.

Web Management Console integration

The StarWind Web Management Console now provides complete lifecycle management for NVMe-oF LUNs:

• Create, configure, add/remove replication partner, maintain, synchronize, and delete Standalone and HA NVMe-oF LUNs.
• Added Add Replication Partner wizard for Standalone NVMe-oF LUNs.
• Added Maintenance Mode and Mark as Synchronized functionality for NVMe-oF HA LUNs.
• Added split-brain detection and resolution mechanisms with synchronization and corresponding HA alerts.
• Added NVMe-oF service logs and headers to support bundles.
• Added licensing validation and capacity management support for NVMe-oF LUN workflows.

High Availability and synchronization improvements since Technical Preview version

• Improved consistency and usability across management workflows and wizards for NVMe-oF LUNs.
• Refined failover and synchronization behavior during restart, reconnect, and split-brain scenarios.
• Strengthened resilience during network interruptions, partner communication failures, and node recovery operations.
• Added graceful and ungraceful shutdown detection together with automatic HA state synchronization safeguards.
• Optimized HA metadata processing to reduce synchronization delays, thread stalls, and service instability under load.
• Improved HA monitoring, diagnostics, and event reporting with new Event IDs, human-readable notifications, and enhanced service logging.
• Improved partner communication and synchronization reliability across HA operations.
• Increased NVMe-oF HA stability during sustained load, recovery operations, and split-brain edge cases.
• Enhanced NVMe-oF HA monitoring, synchronization, and operational reliability.

Web Management Console Improvements

General UI improvements and fixes

• Fixed network adapter auto-connect configuration in the Configure HA Networking wizard.
• Improved Web Console usability and small-screen layout handling.
• Improved disk information rendering in storage management workflows.
• Refined High Availability option processing and capacity validation in LUN creation workflows.

Virtual SAN (VSAN) build 20089

Improvements and fixes

• Fixed IQN generation during iSCSI HA partner addition.
• Fixed partner addition failures on Proxmox-hosted CVM nodes.
• Fixed synchronization channel communication failures during channel reconfiguration.
• Fixed iSCSI HA LUN creation issues in three-node environments.
• Fixed manual synchronization operations returning HTTP 500 errors.
• Resolved an inconsistency in the Manage LUN wizard where a Witness node was incorrectly enforced for node-majority iSCSI HA configurations.
• Improved partner removal operations by using LUN ID instead of target name.
• Fixed localization and alert handling issues in iSCSI management workflows.

Virtualization Platform & Integration Updates

Platform support

• Added support for XCP-ng hypervisor.
• Updated VMware vCenter Plugin compatibility with VMware vCenter 8 and 9.
• Updated VMware CVM (vApp/OVF) template to hardware version 20 for improved ESXi compatibility.

Proxmox and networking

• Added HBA rescan support for Proxmox environments using restricted non-root users.
• Fixed SR-IOV interface binding behavior.

Management console for Windows

• Fixed multiple minor issues in StarWind Management Console.

Security

• Mitigated Copy Fail & Dirty Frag vulnerabilities.
• Installed the latest Ubuntu security updates.

Virtual SAN (VSAN) build 20086

Fixes

• Fixed sporadic VSAN crash when SCSI UNMAP commands are executed.

Virtual SAN (VSAN) build 20084

Fixes

• Fixed iSER connection instability under load.
• Fixed service crash on iSER connection drop.
• Fixed a rare split-brain issue during sequential node upgrades in 3-node clusters.
• Fixed issue of handling HA device communication (heartbeat) and synchronization when network is down.
• Fixed transition issues for LUN devices entering Maintenance Mode.
• Fixed synchronization handling in 3-way mirror setups with “Node Majority” quorum configuration.
• Fixed an issue with CHAP caused HA not synchronizing after one partner was updated.
• Fixed HA iSCSI LUN creation failure with no explanation when Replica adapters have different MTU values.
• Fixed validation bug in partner re-creation flow.

Improvements

• PowerShell StarWindX library:
  
  
  • Added PowerShell script sample for converting standalone devices into HA.
  • Updated RemoveHaPartner method.
  • Improved HA partner handling with CHAP.
• Event handling and logging:
  
  
  • Improved event handling and logging logic
  • Added events for successful device size increase.
  • Changed storage path for starwindx.log file.
• Improved protection against accidental header deletion on active devices.
• Improved VSAN service error handling when stopping devices.

Known issues

• Reported sporadic VSAN crash when SCSI UNMAP commands are executed.

Controller Virtual Machine (CVM version 20251022)

Updater and system services

• StarWind Updater now shows popup messages about new updates at system boot.
• Refactored Update Manager service for better stability.
• Updated system kernel to the latest HWE version.
• Installed latest security updates.

HA configuration and networking

• Added ability to configure HA network during iSCSI LUN creation, including separate parameters for Data and Replication interfaces.
• Improved the “Configure HA networking” wizard layout.
• Added HA synchronization journal integration checks.
• Improved synchronization status display and added active sync checks in “Manage LUN” wizard.

Wizards and UI

• Fixed missing validation message when partner node configurations don’t match during HA configuration setup.
• Fixed tooltips and display issues in “Create LUN” and “Manage LUN” wizards.
• Updated measurement units in LUN Settings.
• Moved “Maintenance Mode” option to the main LUNs page.
• Removed “Allow multiple concurrent connections to iSCSI targets (MPIO)” option from Create LUN wizard.
• Removed option to block partner sessions in Manage LUN wizard.
• Improved “Edit User” wizard with tooltips for restricted roles.
• Added “Plugin IP address” parameter in vCenter Plugin installer.
• Updated “Recent alerts” design.
• Corrected vCenter plugin display parameters.
• Corrected tooltips in CVM network settings.
• Fixed some grammar issues and typos throughout the CVM UI.
• Improved table layouts and column design.
• Corrected resiliency type in pool settings.
• Added reboot prompts after storage device changes.

Proxmox VE support

• Added rescan script to connect StarWind devices at Proxmox VE boot.

Stability and bug fixes

• Fixed VMware ESXi rescan script detection.
• Fixed GUI not properly reflecting HA partner state.
• Fixed CVM restart issue after update.
• Fixed CVM crash during shutdown under load.
• Fixed Hyper-V SR-IOV MAC address binding issue.
• Fixed migration issue with mismatched CVM build versions.
• Fixed product license information synchronization bug.
• Fixed event subscription leaks, event delivery timing issues and duplicate event messages in HA configurations.
• Fixed missing events during HA LUN failover transitions.

Controller Virtual Machine (CVM version 20250225)

Improved

• Improved NVMe support by adding a hotfix to accommodate changes in PCI NVMe SSD addressing.
• Updated StarWindX module to support new licensing options in CVM.

Virtual SAN (VSAN) build 19551

Fixed

• Resolved an issue where the VSAN service crashed due to numerous simultaneous requests from the Management Console.
• Resolved an issue with high latencies during synchronization link failover in a redundant network configuration.

Virtual SAN (VSAN) build 15554

Fixed

• Addressed a problem where VSAN service would freeze when creating HA devices.
• Resolved an issue where empty folders were left after device removal.
• Fixed the issue with HA device status reporting in the Web GUI.

Controller Virtual Machine (CVM Version 20240822)

1. Management Service:

• Fixed a licensing issue that caused pop-ups when the license expired.
• Resolved a problem where the capacity of standalone LUNs was incorrectly counted.
• Fixed an issue with adding partner appliances.
• Fixed management network configuration for Proxmox VE.
• Improved validation for HA switchless networks.

2. Storage

2.1 Pools

• Fixed the appearance of hot-spare disks.
• Resolved issues with the removal of degraded storage pools.
• Improved the "Create Storage Pool" wizard to handle scenarios where new disks might take the name of an existing disk that's already in a pool.
• Improved "Repair Pool" wizard startup for cases involving disk failure.
• Improved storage initialization for degraded software RAID pools.

2.2 Volumes

• Fixed volume name validation.

2.3 LUNs

• Fixed alerts for 3-way HA iSCSI devices using switchless networking.
• Resolved issues with multiple LUN removals on the CVM.

3. Services

• Improved the operation of License Manager and Web Console services during CVM boot.
• Updated Pro-Active Support service to the latest build.

4. Update

• Improved generation of the HBA rescan configuration file.
• Improved in-place VSAN CVM updates by backing up important configuration files (hba_rescan) and downloading packages prior to starting the update procedure.

5. Plugin

• Fixed the availability of the vCenter plugin for certain VSAN for vSphere licenses.

6. Bare Metal

• Added VM-based update scripts to ISO (Experimental feature for updating older versions of VSAN CVM).
• Fixed DHCP assignment for VSAN deployed in a VM using ISO.

7. Other

• Added checksums to CVM build files.
• Fixed OVF settings validation.
• Improved naming conventions in product binaries.
• Improved support bundle generation and log rotation.

Virtual SAN (VSAN) Build 15469

Added

• 512 block size emulation for creating iSCSI devices (LUNs) on top of 4Kn underlying storage
• Automatic backup of device (LUN) header files

Improved:

• Performance for 3-node HA devices (LUNs) with RAM-based journals
• Failover for HA devices (LUNs) with Node-majority failover strategy
• Synchronization performance for iSER-enabled replication networks
• Creating HA devices (LUNs) using PowerShell samples

Fixed:

• HA devices (LUNs) reporting wrong physical sector size
• Issue when adding replication partner for HA devices (LUNs) with L1 cache enabled
• Bitmap file creation for devices (LUNs) with disk-based journals
• Issue with removing the partner appliance when using the Node-majority failover strategy
• Caching for license validation requests

Controller Virtual Machine (CVM Version 20240530)

1. User Interface (UI, Web Console):

• Updated style for pie charts, graphs, toolbars, settings, tables, filters, and pop-ups
• Updated UI for Create User, Create Pool, Manage Pool, Manage LUNs wizards
• Improved size of wizards for large displays
• Improved UI for Edit Network Adapter Settings dialog
• Improved locales and refined text throughout the Web Console

2. Dashboard:

• Fixed issue with performance metrics generation

3. Storage:

4. Network:

• Fixed issue with network validation for creating 3-way HA devices (LUNs)

5. Appliances

• Added “Fix connectivity” button to reestablish connection with the disconnected partner appliance in 3-way HA configuration

6. Users:

• Fixed issue with removal of currently logged-in user
• Blocked creation of system-reserved usernames

7. Initial Configuration Wizard:

• Removed vCenter plugin installation option from the Initial Configuration Wizard

8. Text-based User Interface:

• Improved TUI service startup
• Added validations for incorrect network settings provided by the OVF template
• Added network interface selection to Management Network configuration
• Removed option to edit hostname in TUI

Other Improvements:

Added

• Downloadable ISO image for StarWind VSAN bare-metal deployments
• Support for VirtIO NICs and virtual disks for KVM-based environments
• Option to download Management Console installer for Windows from the Web Console
• Option to download PowerShell samples from the Web Console

Improved

• Log bundle collection
• Log rotation

Updated

• Hyper-V VM template to the latest settings with integration services enabled
• Security patches for CVM components (more information can be found here)

Removed

• Data Network configuration and hostname setting from OVF Template for VMware environments as this functionality is provided in the Initial Configuration Wizard within Web Console

VM

• StarWind Controller Virtual Machine has got new Web and Text-based user interfaces.
• Software RAID and ZFS web-based management have been added.
• Web-based management for Standalone and Highly available iSCSI LUNs has been added.
• Web-based management for SMB and NFS file sharing has been added.
• VMware vCenter Plugin has been added.
• Latest security updates installed (More info you can find here)
• Linux Kernel has been updated to the latest HWE version.

VM

• Linux Kernel has been updated.
• Additional services have been updated.

Synchronous Replication

• Fixed an issue with synchronization/heartbeat channels unable to restore the connection when performance degradation occurs on the underline storage and VAAI is enabled for StarWind HA Devices.

VM

• Linux Kernel has been updated.
• Additional services have been updated.

Synchronous Replication

• Fixed deadlock when a partner device is removed during full or fast synchronization.
• Fixed crash when updating StarWind service with mutual CHAP configured on StarWind HA devices.
• Fixed failure when extending StarWind HA device with disk-based synchronization journal.
• Fixed deadlock when a partner device is added.
• Fixed false fast synchronization when the first partner is added with a node majority failover policy.

VM

• Linux Kernel has been updated.
• Additional services have been updated.

Synchronous Replication

• Fixed spurious replication failure.

VM

• Linux Kernel has been updated.
• Additional services have been updated.

Synchronous Replication

• Fixed the slow full synchronization issue.

VM

• Linux Kernel has been updated.
• Additional services have been updated.
• Fixed an issue where rescan script couldn't start.

Core

• Excluded asynchronous replicas, LSFS and LWC from the project.
• Encrypted secret passwords for chap authentications.
• Fixed the crash during the creation of the replica.
• Fixed the crash for time-outed I/O requests.
• Fixed the spurious lost connection.
• Updated the TLS version to 1.2 (used for email notifications).
• Minor fixes and updates.

Synchronous Replication

• Added synchronization journal places on a disk with two working strategies:
  
  Best Performance: The strategy provides better I/O performance while all device nodes are in a healthy state. But it can't guarantee fast synchronization in all cases
  
  Fast Recovery: The strategy provides faster recovery in all cases but requires an I/O overhead for each write operation.
• Fixed the node majority logic during storage degradation.

VM

• Linux Kernel updated.
• Collect logs script was updated. It generates a random archive name in case the archive name was not indicated.
• Log watcher script was updated to avoid multiple HBA rescan triggers from occurring. It stops on the last succ essful synchronization event.
• Additional services were updated.

Core

• Fixed the memory leak in the VSA-based version that could be caused by changing the time on the VM.

StarWind Health Service was updated in this new build.

Core

• Fixed the crash for client write request handling.
• Fixed the deadlock for the processing of SCSI persistent reservation during client session registration.
• Fixed the issue with the service getting stuck when the log file would be located on the storage that had degrading performance.

StarWindX PowerShell Module

• Fixed memory leak on getting information for HA devices.

Release Notes Archive