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StarWind HCA

StarWind HCA

Overview

What is StarWind HCA?

The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution designed to reduce application downtime on a reasonable budget.

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Recent Reviews

Top product and good price policy

8 out of 10
August 31, 2022
We would like to have a cheaper solution compared to a storage system but with all the advantages and not the disadvantages. Here only …
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Awards

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Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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What is StarWind HCA?

The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution designed to reduce application downtime on a reasonable budget.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwi…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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What is Scale Computing Platform?

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…

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Product Details

What is StarWind HCA?

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is a turnkey hyper-converged platform that merges compute, storage, network, and software into a nuclear 2-node footprint. The solution is designed to simplify HCI management for Enterprise ROBO, SMB & Edge, while offering flexible scalability and powerful performance.

Users can start with two nodes, based on HeartBeat, that can be switchless and function without additional equipment. StarWind HCA is a software-centric architecture that removes the need for proprietary components. StarWind Engineers perform the configuration, testing, migration, and integration for users, free of charge.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance:

  • allows using 100% of underlying storage performance
  • has no hardware compatibility lists (HCLs)
  • does 2- or 3-way replication + local RAID 5/6/10
  • does VAAI and ODX data offloading
  • includes load balancing and data locality
  • does VM-centric hypervisor-level snapshots, and more.

To minimize CapEx and OpEx further, StarWind ProActive Premium Support (included in every license) substitutes an IT squad for the sake of cluster health assurance. ProActive Support monitors user environments 24/7/365, and uses machine learning to detect abnormal behavior so issues are prevented before they can become a problem.

The vendor presents StarWind HCA as a hyper-converged world enclosed in a tiny “building block” that comes at a reasonable price.

StarWind HCA Video

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)

StarWind HCA Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

The StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution designed to reduce application downtime on a reasonable budget.

Scale Computing Platform and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure are common alternatives for StarWind HCA.

Reviewers rate Availability and Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.7.

The most common users of StarWind HCA are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(63)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-5 of 5)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is used as shared storage in a 4 host cluster. The connection is via LAN (10Gb) and runs with good performance. In this way we can virtualize an area of IT and thus relieve the hardware costs. In addition, data security is increased, although there is a stable backup and restore concept.
  • turnkey hyperconverged appliance
  • uninterrupted application delivery and data security
  • improving the graphical interface with pnp functions
  • Extension of the display to performance parameters via latency, access, etc.
In an environment where flexible storage usage is important, StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is the optimal solution. With the right planning, the system can be expanded flexibly. Personally, I find the integration into VMware class successful. This makes it easy to scale shared storage, which is almost always scarce. Thanks to the node principle, the reliability is high and the hypervisor can be maintained or replaced during operation without restrictions.
  • I don't think the relatively high purchase compared to the pure hardware solution is that good
  • the reduced maintenance and flexible expansion is good
We have heard a lot about AI and have already used it as an alternative. This is not used in the HCA and therefore we cannot make any statements about it at the moment. In the future, the AI may replace the colleagues, but the proactive, human monitoring in connection with checkmk, etc. is more familiar and safer at the moment.
We installed according to the manual and created a parallel environment. The performance and service were very good. The installation caused some problems. During the process of migrating to the new system, there were minor disruptions that made themselves felt in the form of VM failures, but were quickly resolved by support.
Thanks to the finished hardware concept, the HCA is quickly ready for use and requires less configuration effort.The high speed and low failure rate are unbeatable in comparison to the virtual SAN.After a detailed examination, the costs balance each other out. In my opinion, the ROI is shorter with the HCA.
VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced (discontinued), Veeam ONE, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365
10
Other manufacturers will be implemented as part of the existing knowledge.We are a consulting company with our own technical department.The focus of action is in the VoIP area.The technology is very well trained in VMware topics and implements requests and also creates designs according to requirements.In the hardware area, Hewlett Packard Enterprise equipment is primarily used.
2
Colleagues have to act very independently and on their own responsibility. Continuous further training on the StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product is important so that all questions and problems can be answered or solved.A high level of knowledge in the field of virtualization, network and hardware distinguishes the colleagues very much.
  • Relief of the budget for vSAN
  • Increasing the performance of shared storage
  • the unexpectedly quick procurement of the appliance was a good start
  • the possibility of expanding the storage and realizing it with the StarWind product
  • to make resources immediately available through the expansion of the company
  • the gathering of positive empirical values about the product itself
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
Not Sure
  • Integration with Other Systems
  • Other
It was about the decision to replace a hardware VSAN solution. There were the virtual SAN and the HCA in the selection.From a technical point of view, we prepared the test environment with the HCA and then made the decision accordingly.
The expectation is a transparent comparability. Even if our procedure involves two different technologies, i.e. hardware solution versus software solution.This simplifies the consideration of the aspects of the technical implementation, the financial size and in this context the ROI.
  • Don't know
  • Questions arose that the operating systems were not up to date.
  • The provision in the rack caused a short delay in the installation.
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.
During the installation phase, we used Premium Support. Since the handling was still unknown, as was the complete appliance, it was good to get support from the support.During operation, we then decided against support because our requirements were the same and no experiments are being carried out. The system is running.
No
In the early days of virtualization, it was about easy-to-operate storage solutions.StarWind's solution was the answer. It also blended in with the system landscape visually.Another bonus point was the clear connection and relatively quick commissioning.Internally, of course, it was also a question of costs. This was weighed up and in the long term the ROI of the StaarWind appliance is achieved faster than that of the competition.
  • Set up LUNs
  • Manage iSCSI portals
  • manage capacity
  • Connection to not so high-quality switches
  • Working with the container/Docker
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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We were running MS Dynamics AX2012 on a HP LeftHand SAN solution, but it was just too slow. We moved to an all flash StarWind solution that performed much, much better and improved the user experience greatly, and only took up 4U of rack space rather than the full rack of SAN nodes and servers.
  • Very stable.
  • Takes up very little physical space.
  • Excellent support.
  • Easy to implement and use.
  • Nothing to be improved.
I can only speak to our own use. We run a Hyper-V failover cluster on 2 StarWind nodes (Dell R730dx) and I never have any issues with the StarWind software or hardware. If there is ever an issue it tends to be with the VM, and StarWind proactive monitoring picks up on this 24/7 before I know about it, the support is excellent.
  • Increased speed.
  • Reduced physical footprint.
  • Reduced energy consumption.
  • Improved user experience.
The support is always helpful, prompt and useful. That's more than I can say for any other vendor I've worked with. The proactive has highlighted issues with some of VM's that I may not have otherwise spotted as quickly, which has prompted us to get the issues fixed before they become a larger issue.
In 4 years I have never had any down time or unplanned outages. The only time it has ever been down is when we added additional SSD's to expand the capacity, and even then no one noticed as we took 1 node down at a time and the end users never saw any down time.
StarWind provided the best value for money against the other solutions we looked at, while providing all the functionality we needed.
Hyper-V, Veeam Backup & Replication, ESET Endpoint Security
5 years support was included in the very competitive price.
No
I wanted to add an additional set of SSD's and create a new, separate volume. I contacted StarWind about this and got an immediate response with knowledgeable staff who bent over backwards to help and provide all the info I needed to complete the upgrade.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We settled on StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) as a less expensive alternative to VMWare's more expensive license for vSAN shared storage between our two VMWare hosts, providing full hardware redundancy of everything. The peace of mind knowing that all of our data and VMs are running on two fully redundant hosts is amazing.
  • Fully redundant shared storage (vSAN)
  • Proactive monitoring of all of the hardware
  • 24/7 support
Having an admittedly limited personal experience with only this one implementation, I can't compare any other scenarios to mine. What I can say is their support has been amazing and very proactive, and even though they do not formally provide VMWare support, their expertise and willingness to do what they can when a need arises has been excellent and extremely appreciated, to the point that I haven't had to go to VMWare directly for support since purchasing and migrating everything to the new hosts. One negative aspect with the initial setup was, at the time of our order/deployment, they didn't have a Linux version of their management VMs for VMWare (only for Hyper-V), so I had to use two of my Windows Server licenses for their Windows-Server-based management VMs for the first year, which did put me in a bit of a bind, but, they finally released the Linux versions, and remoted in and quickly and expertly switched them over with very little downtime (we did it over the weekend), and it was completely uneventful.
  • Substantial cost savings over VMWare's vSAN license
  • Massive increase in performance/IOPS compared to our previous hosts
We have had a few times where I was informed they had lost connection, but in all of those cases, it was due to a local network issue. The hosts and StarWinds vSAN have been rock solid.
We have experienced zero downtime hardware-wise since implementing the new hosts with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) vSAN technology.
In our simple two-host environment, StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) won out hands down in cost, and while I had no prior experience with the technology, I have been extremely pleased with the result. I wouldn't hesitate to go with them again in the future, although our current hosts will likely still be going strong for at least another 5-7 years.
1
I'm the IT director and one-man IT support for the company.
1
Knowledge of networks/networking and VMWare vCenter server and host management. It is really quite simple for anyone with a decent general skillset.
  • Full hardware redundancy for both VMWare hosts and all of our data
  • There are none, but our needs are extremely limited, and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) is doing exactly what we need.
  • Possibly integrating with one of the clouds for backups and/or VM migrations
Because we are extremely satisfied with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) in all aspects of our experience
Yes, for the peace of mind, and I don't regret it.
No
One weekend we had a fiber module fail in our ISPs internet router. StarWind support notified me they'd lost connectivity, so I came in and figured out what the problem was and was able to get Cogent out in time to fix it before everyone came in for work on Monday, so there was no downtime that affected business operations.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use StarWind vSAN to support the IT needs across the entire company. It allows us to provide high-performance computing and storage to the business needs (i.e.: VMs, apps, desktops, etc.). It also reduces our IT complexity in hardware and maintenance.
  • High performance storage.
  • Great customer service and support.
  • Simple to deploy.
  • Reduced single points of failure.
  • Documentation.
I would suggest any SMB who hosts their own IT infrastructure and has at least a moderately knowledgeable staff to use StarWind HCA. It is easy to initially set up and has very little daily maintenance.
  • Reduced IT maintenance.
  • Increased infrastructure redundancy.
  • Reduced hardware/rack wiring complexity.
StarWind proactive support gives us "another set of eyes" to watch over our system to catch anything we might miss, especially on something as critical as the compute and storage that runs our business.
No downtime as of yet.
We compared against just general servers + SAN solution from Dell. StarWind had fewer single points of failure, reduced hardware, and better performance.
vSphere, Veeam Backup & Replication
45
All.
1
General IT knowledge. General vSphere knowledge. General hardware knowledge.
  • Compute
  • Storage
  • Reduced single points of failure
  • General IT infrastructure needs
  • Disaster Recovery, offsite
Easy to set up, easy to use. Nothing bad I can say about it.
Yes
Dell VRTX all-in-one compute and storage, and prior to that a nodes, network, and SAN system. We replaced primarily because our warranties were expiring although we did want better performance and more resiliency as well.
  • Price
  • Product Usability
Ease of use with good support at a reasonable price.
Wouldn't change anything.
  • Implemented in-house
No
  • None
Very simple, all you need is a day's worth of time to install the hardware, get the vSAN up and running, and start moving over workloads.
Yes. We purchased it to have an extra set of eyes on the infrastructure since we have a small staff and limited time to monitor the HCA/vSAN constantly.
No
Every time. Pre-purchase discussions, customizing the hardware, initial setup, and resolution of issues.
  • Initial setup.
  • Daily usage.
  • Power loss graceful shutdown.
  • Testing.
No
Easy to set up initially and use.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are an IT service provider. A new area that we wanted to branch out into is hosting services/data for our customers. Starwind HyperConverged appliances helped us do just that. With two clusters, we are now hosting critical servers for our customers and are also able to give our customers offsite data backup for their onsite servers with disaster recovery into our private cloud.
  • Tech Support. Starwind proactive tech support reaches out to us when they detect an issue instead of us having to initiate the support call. Then their technician will stay with us through the entire process until a resolution is found.
  • Affordability. Starwind HCA is very aggressively priced while still able to offer all of the needed features that you look for in an HCA solution.
  • Simplicity. Starwind offers network-less 2 and 3 node clusters. This way you can have a stable failover cluster without needing to monitor and maintain a separate storage network stack.
  • Multi cluster console. Currently, their management console is only able to attach to a single cluster at a time. I'm told that they have multi-cluster management high on their list of new features to be added so hopefully that is added soon.
  • Tech support locations. Currently, their tech support is located in eastern Europe. While they are staffed 24/7 there can be a language barrier at times trying to listen through thick accents. They are always very patient and never complain, even when I ask them to repeat themselves multiple times.
Starwind HCA is the perfect solution for small to medium businesses wanting the high availability of a cluster without the complexity of a traditional cluster/SAN architecture. In a 2 or 3 node setup, there is no need for a separate storage switch stack as the nodes can all be directly connected. This improves simplicity while still offering great availability and speed. In large enterprises where you want to have a large number of nodes, it may make more sense to separate the storage and compute stacks.
  • Starwind has given us the ability to offer services that we were having to outsource in the past. This increases our offering, thus increasing our value to our customers.
  • Because Starwind is very affordably priced we are able to offer services to our customers while maintaining healthy margins.
  • The proactive support has allowed our technicians to focus on our customer instead of on our own internal hardware.
Starwind has reached out to us twice in the past 6 months on issues that we were not even aware of yet. One of the issues actually involved our backup software and they assisted us in recommending settings changes that would solve the problem instead of just referring us to that vendor. Their technicians have never had to escalate an issue as they have always been able to provide a solution.
We have not had any downtime or outages since implementing Starwind HCA. In one of our clusters, we did have a node completely lose sync with the other 2 nodes but it was able to perform a full sync and bring that node back online. During this time our users did not notice any noticeable performance impact.
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 got the impression that Simplivity was not their main focus and we didn't want to buy in to a dying product.
Veeam Backup & Replication, ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect), Hyper-V
Yes
I chose Starwind Proactive support because I want the extra peace of mind of knowing that I have an extra set of eyes on my hyper-converged clusters.
No
At one point shortly after installation, we were receiving an error that was actually impacting performance in any way. The solution was a driver update. The technician performed this driver update on all of my nodes and even on a separate cluster that wasn't having this issue. This was at 11 pm. He went above and beyond during off-hours even though this was not a production impacting issue.
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