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Scale Computing Platform vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Scale Computing Platform
Ranking in HCI
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Edge Computing Platforms (1st)
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
190
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Scale Computing Platform is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Benjamin Bodenehim - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution is user-friendly, stable, and easy to deploy
The snapshot technology takes up 500 times more space compared to other solutions. The snapshots are working on the byte level and not the bit level. The solution has three detriments, there is no performance, we can't see how much CPU each node is using, and we have no technical data on anything that happened on the server. Additionally, replication is also lacking and does not work well, partially to the fact of the snapshot technology.
MIT - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up and maintain with good performance capabilities
Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline. ATM (20220609) is still necessary, since taking a node offline without properly activating the maintenance mode on the vSAN would trigger a full sync of the vSAN nodes. This is fine and a good thing since it ensures data integrity. However, there is something in the making that would ensure integrity without a full sync after a node goes down, which, as stated above, one could "abuse" to patch (and boot = take down) the hypervisors during business hours 😁 Other than that, the thing is rock stable and chugging along without issues. We are an SMB so we "only" have around 50 VMs on our FO cluster, which is a medium load for SSDs. If you plan to go more to the "max" side of performance use, do proper testing!

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It gives the ease of management for a small IT department."
"The solution is scalable."
"The product's initial setup phase is too easy."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the nice GUI."
"I rate Scale Computing support 10 out of 10. They're accessible and responsive."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Scale Computing HC3 is if one of the devices fails, you won't even notice, the service maintains operation. The customers don't have to waste two, or three days on delays. Additionally, you do not have to waste time with recovery software, it is a lot easier."
"I like that Scale Computing HCR is slimmed down and gives me the features I need and not features that I don't need."
"The solution provides great performance for the price it is listed with."
"You can turn your local disk storage into high-availability iSCSI storage."
"The access to our data is quicker and cheaper than it used to be in a traditional storage system."
"The management and monitoring have been very easy since the solution's dashboard is very simple and user-friendly."
"Recovery and maintenance are now less stressful and most importantly, it allows our users to keep working."
"It enables us to provide more solution options for our clients, with the reassurance that, when implemented, they will be efficient and stable."
"We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment."
"Virtual SAN runs on iSCSI, which is free and easy to configure. It's easy to manage from StarWind's GUI console, and it only required a few extra switch ports."
 

Cons

"On the fly, you cannot do anything on Scale Computing HC3, though it is a very rarely needed area."
"Scale HC3 improvements would involve literally fixing up the replication."
"I've had so many issues with the sales team when I was looking to make some improvements, and improve the performance. They would create so many excuses to force me to buy new nodes all the time and not let me add more memory to each node."
"The product could use a better control center."
"Scale Computing HC3 said in an announcement they were going to integrate with a backup service which would be good. If they could do this it would be beneficial."
"I would like bigger clusters with more than eight nodes."
"There could be an easier way to see which servers are on each node"
"The snapshot technology takes up 500 times more space compared to other solutions."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"For improvement, I would like to see how the software determines which networks to use for which purpose. It seems like the naming terminology changes a bit from here to there."
"New versions of this solution should be tested more thoroughly before the release as we had a few problems with one version due to a bug."
"I would like to see more user-friendly dashboards in future versions."
"I wish there was online support because email return takes a long time and a faster solution should be found."
"There is no IPv6 support. That is our only issue at this time."
"Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
"We ran into an issue with alerts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"rate HC3's pricing a five out of ten since it is affordable."
"I pay for Scale Computing HC3 and it includes customer service for one year. We paid for an additional year for customer service but that includes the updates and everything for the software. Additionally, the licensing is for Windows, which is the same for everybody."
"The product is worth the money, but I would not say it's very cheap or very expensive."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."
"The premium support from StarWinds is a must have. The ability to have access to a storage engineer 24/7 is a must for a production environment."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."
"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Scale Computing HC3?
The product's initial setup phase is too easy.
What needs improvement with Scale Computing HC3?
There could be an easier way to see which servers are on each node. It shows you a small graphical interface, but you have to see them all, and you have to really struggle to figure out which nodes...
What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
Choose StarWind Virtual SAN, it is the most flexible, reliable and cheap solution.
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
While using StarWind Virtual SAN so far, I have not found anything missing. It is true that we are using it in a very strict project in which we were looking for a solution that would satisfy a str...
 

Also Known As

Scale Computing HC3
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Resorts World Las Vegas, Stena, Telford Offshore, Goodwill, Sandals, Jerry's Enterprises, Mendard's Royal Farms, Delhaize, Benchmark Electronics, Classic Hotels, Genting Casino, Lindt, Sainsbury's, Landmark Cinemas, Golden Queen Mining, Coca Cola. Holiday Inn, Iron County School District, Sevier County Bank, City of St. Cloud Minnesota, Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, KIB Electronics, Brake Masters, Lincoln County Hospital, Ohio Summit County Board of Elections
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Scale Computing Platform vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.