Scale Computing Platform vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Scale Computing Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Scale Computing offers edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions for customers around the globe. Scale Computing HyperCore software promises to eliminate traditional virtualization software, disaster recovery software, servers, and shared storage, replacing these with a fully integrated, highly available system for running applications. The vendor says that, using patented HyperCore™ technology, the SC//HyperCore self-healing platform automatically identifies, mitigates, and…
$3,300
per node
StarWind HCA
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution designed to reduce application downtime on a reasonable budget.N/A
Pricing
Scale Computing PlatformStarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
Editions & Modules
HE151
$3,300
per node
HE501
$6,800
per node
HC1300
$11,900
per node
HC3350F
$13,400
per node
HC5450D
$26,500
per node
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Scale Computing PlatformStarWind HCA
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing shown in U.S. Dollar. Pricing for other regions available on request.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Scale Computing PlatformStarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
Considered Both Products
Scale Computing Platform
Chose Scale Computing Platform
Nutanix could not compete on price. Not even close. It is a much more complex environment to configure and manage. While this probably means it has a few additional features, we did not encounter any that were relevant to us. It's lone advantage was onsite hardware support. …
StarWind HCA
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
Scale seemed like a good solution also. The problem from my side was how different the end result would be from our current environment. Scale uses it's own proprietary hypervisor, so no VMware. This would save on licenses but would require a new set of skills and possibly a …
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
We looked at Scale Computing as another option that was more expensive. There may have been a couple more bells and whistles but for our organization and pricepoint, Starwind fit the bill. With Scale your needed three nodes and with StarWind only 2. Also, StarWind offered …
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
Scale was a proprietary SAN software/hardware and outrageously high priced. The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance was just Dell servers with VMWare ESXi Hypervisor installed running two Windows Servers virtual machines where the StarWind SAN software is installed on. The only …
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance was the only option that offered the performance, reliability, and high availability that we were looking for. It's also the solution that is tailored for small organizations and removes a lot of the complexities and extra components needed to …
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
I've never used a Scale appliance, but I've researched them and talked to their sales team and engineers. I decided to go with StarWind vs Scale largely because of price, but I also wanted to use Hyper-V and didn't really want to go with a proprietary hypervisor, which is what …
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
We chose Starwind over Nutanix and Scale because of price and hypervisor. Both Nutanix and Scale use a customer hypervisor and we wanted to use a hypervisor we were already well versed in. Starwind won over Simplivity because of cost and support. During our talks with HP we …
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
At the time of our purchase, we chose StarWind over Scale for the performance and affordability it offered over Scale's HC3 platform. From Sales to Service we had a very comfortable feeling from all teams at StarWind. We liked Scale's offerings, but StarWind for us was a …
Chose StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
We really like Scale HC3, but it's over our budget.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Scale Computing PlatformStarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
Small Businesses
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.6 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.6 out of 10
Scale Computing Platform
Scale Computing Platform
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 9.0 out of 10
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Scale Computing PlatformStarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(234 ratings)
9.8
(59 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(22 ratings)
8.5
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(40 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.7
(53 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(234 ratings)
9.7
(54 ratings)
In-Person Training
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Scale Computing PlatformStarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)
Likelihood to Recommend
Scale Computing
I would recommend it to anyone who has three or more servers. We just received another quote as I am about to deploy Scale at City Hall as well. This will replace my 8-year-old VMware cluster that hosts 20 servers.
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StarWind
As a nonprofit, we needed a virtualization platform that was reliable, cost effective, and simple to administer. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance checked all the boxes for us. We went with their refurbished models to lower the cost, and they've been rock solid. We were able to simplify our environment and the platform has been so reliable that I really don't have to think about it. This has been great for me as the sole sysadmin. There are a lot of pieces to manage, and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance have allowed me to focus less on the platform and more on the VM's themselves and the other pieces of our network environment. I think as long as you get the "right size" of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance that this platform could work well for many organizations.
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Pros
Scale Computing
  • Snapshots are lean and fast, so restore time is simply amazing. When you don't have time to wait after a crypto attack to restore, I have found nothing faster!
  • Clients can never fully know their growth for years to come, and sometimes it is only a year after the original install. This is no problem we can build on to the system like Lego blocks. Just simply adding a node or two and there is no downtime!
  • There are many functions that can be done while servers are running that help to maintain the most uptime, as an example disk size on the primary disk can be expanded without shutting down the server.
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StarWind
  • It is extremely easy to set up, it comes with most options pre-configured for you. But the support group will walk through your entire setup and migration.
  • It is monitored by StarWind 24x7. Instead of issues being reactive with the monitoring I'm hoping things will be more proactive.
  • The performance has been outstanding. I think disk was our main limiting factor with our hold hardware.
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Cons
Scale Computing
  • It exposes no backup API. You have to treat VMs as physical machines, with all the drawbacks. This is a huge problem, since the official partner Acronis can't deliver. If you ever worked with Veeam you want it back very very badly.
  • Assigned RAM is used RAM. The hypervisor can't share memory or only allocate what is used etc. It's wasted RAM most of the time.
  • No logging and auditing. (There is, but not visible to the customer).
  • The GUI is quite bad. It looks like done by a designer instead of an IT expert. But it's improving constantly.
  • The company relies heavily on KVM, but seems to have no developer in the open source community. This leads to answers like "we can't do anything about QEMU drivers". Yes, you can. Have delevopers working on it.
  • You can't do basic things like list all of your VMs and see how much RAM/disk, etc. they are using (e.g. in a list view).
  • No rules on which VMs start on which nodes, which VMs to prioritize, etc.
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StarWind
  • Support team has slight accent but is not too difficult to understand.
  • Emphasis on security can be improved. Things like default passwords were not changed initially until requested.
  • Can't really think of much else...If I had to split hairs...on reboots sometimes it took a while to sync with the other node. Max was 30 minutes, but 99% of the time it's 3-4 minutes.
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Likelihood to Renew
Scale Computing
Since I have had no issues with downtime; easier management of my cluster and the ability to lower the number of devices in my Infrastructure, I will gladly renew my support contract with Scale Computing HC3 and upgrade my equipment with them when it comes time for it.
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StarWind
The hardware appliance convinced me. It is also good to use as a product in the box.Experience of the speed and security of the storage and the data on the storage is important.Installation is relatively easy and support is supportive. You are not left alone.Therefore a clear recommendation
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Usability
Scale Computing
Everything you need to do is point-and-click easy. If you are the kind of admin who wants to edit every config file and endlessly customize your environment, then Scale may not be for you. On the other hand, if you just want it to work really well, and do what they told you it will do, then Scale is the ideal system.
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StarWind
Overall, the appliance is versatile. It covers the adaptation to all current hypervisors and can be addressed via different protocols. This prepares you for a wide range of uses.Rack mounting is also well thought out. And last but not least, apart from the technical performance, it is also an eye-catcher.
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Reliability and Availability
Scale Computing
Never had an outage or an error. Once a hard drive failed, but Scale kept on working flawlessly without interruption.
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StarWind
Working with the
support team has been great. Connecting with somebody during and after business
hours has been smooth, and they have always been responsive and professional. I don't have to wait very long to hear back from them when either sending out an email with a question or inquiry or when calling after business hours when we had to shutdown and bring back up the servers due to hurricanes here in Florida.
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Performance
Scale Computing
Performance has been just as outstanding as reliability. I have never experienced delays in any aspect of usage.
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StarWind
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Scale Computing
The support team deserves major props for how cordial and professional they were with our implementation. We were assigned a project manager and engineer. Everything was scheduled with our kick-off call, and our engineer got us up and running in no time.
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StarWind
Literally, while writing this review, I just received an email from starwind saying my VSAN version was out of date due to a recent update coming out and they offered to help me install it. Its just amazing how "on top of it" support is. They'll monitor downtime, reboots, version issues, even the bios firmware on the Dell servers... I can't imagine using any other vendor, they just do it all, and they do it well.
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In-Person Training
Scale Computing
I did not do in-person training.
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StarWind
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Scale Computing
Because Scale is so simple, the training is just as quick and easy.
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StarWind
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Scale Computing
The implementation was very easy. We had Scale support on standby and they were ready and eager to help if needed. The process went so fast the employees in the organization did not even know it was done.
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StarWind
The old saying: Preparation is everything.It should be ensured in advance that the operating system is up-to-date and therefore suitable for the appliance.The recommended network adapters should also be used in the network and the firewall rules adjusted.If this is planned in advance and everything is prepared, then the installation can be carried out relatively quickly.The manuals and the StarWind website are also a very good help.
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Alternatives Considered
Scale Computing
At the end of the day, and in the environment we are in, Scale just fits the bill, both price-wise and functionality-wise. Upgrading our VM environment was always a week-long process, now, it is a twenty-minute process, implementing, converting VMs, and rolling everything over to Scale was completed in less than a week's time, and that included training.
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StarWind
Scale was a proprietary SAN software/hardware and outrageously high priced. The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance was just Dell servers with VMWare ESXi Hypervisor installed running two Windows Servers virtual machines where the StarWind SAN software is installed on. The only thing that was proprietary for StarWind was the StarWind SAN software
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Scalability
Scale Computing
HC3 is one of the best products I have purchased for our district. It is unbelievably reliable to the point that they shoot themselves in the foot on support contracts.
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StarWind
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Scale Computing
  • 0% downtime or loss of revenue due to downtime.
  • The simplicity of testing backups in a live environment in the event of a technical catastrophe.
  • Ease of mind and a lot less stress worrying about a raid system within a standalone server dying in the middle of the night.
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StarWind
  • Our CIS software has some poorly optimized SQL logic. Our old Failover Cluster w/ a VNXe3200 SAN would take up to 7 seconds to pull a customer's records up. It now takes only 1-2 seconds. Our front office has been much more pleasant since their install.
  • I would only rarely have to interact with our blade switches and VNXe SAN, so I wouldn't necessarily retain the knowledge of how to configure them. Each time I'd need to make a change, I'd have to refer back to my documentation. That's no longer an issue I have to deal with.
  • The rack footprint for our cluster went from 14U to 4U, and we were able to achieve it with much less network cabling and with lowered power requirements.
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ScreenShots

Scale Computing Platform Screenshots

Screenshot of Scale Computing Fleet Management Dashboard - 
At-a-glance summary of the health of the fleet upon login.Screenshot of Cluster Details -
Details of a particular cluster, including health, fleet manager connectivity, nodes, and VMsScreenshot of Scale Computing Fleet Manager -
Manages an organization’s fleet of Clusters.Screenshot of Hypercore UI -
Simple Web Interface for Local Management of the Cluster and its Workloads