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Medium Size School Using Scale Computing HC3
Updated October 23, 2020

Medium Size School Using Scale Computing HC3

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Scale Computing HC3

Scale Computing HC3 is acting as our one source for CPU and storage in our datacenter. It is being used across the whole organization. It provides us the ability to have a single pain of glass into our server environment, and make patching a breeze.
  • Very simple easy to use UI.
  • No driver issues.
  • Support has been top notch.
  • The HC3 solution did not play nicely with our aging core switch, so we had to upgrade that as well.
  • There was not support for transferring old application servers 2008 and under.
  • I would like to see thermal readings in the UI.
The support rep that helped us get set up was great. He worked through our initial struggles with out old core switch, and when we narrowed the problem down to the switch he was fast to offer a resolution. Once we got a new core switch, he quickly rescheduled our initial setup/training and was great to work with.
Our Scale Computing HC3 is running our windows environment which includes; Domain Controllers, File servers, Printer Servers, and a few other services. So far it has handled our needs flawlessly. We do not use any on prem applications so I do not have experience with that side of it. I would imagine it would handle applications fine though.
  • Single unit to upgrade.
  • Power use is much less than old hosts+SAN with spinning disk.
  • Single pane of glass to see if there is a failure.
Scale offered an all in one solution, with its own hypervisor. Having a single pain of glass for storage and computing makes it way easier to support. As a one man IT dept I was looking for as simple, yet robust as possible option. Scale fit that need, as well as came in under budget.
In our mid size school it is a good fit. It was a little more expensive than I originally wanted, but it makes up for it with features and ease of use. I think it would scale up nicely to meet a larger storage, and compute need than ours. On the downside I think we are about as small as we could go with the product. If you are a smaller entity than what we are you will struggle finding a solution with Scale to fit your need.

Using Scale Computing HC3

1000 - Our Scale Computing nodes are used across the whole school. They host all of our data and servers, including file, domain, print, and VDI. Every business function is represented from students, to teachers, to office staff, as well as IT.
1 - I am a one man IT department, and as such have to be a jack of all trades. As such I can go from desktop support, to network management, to server administration all in a matter of minutes. Scale Computing allows for this transition seamlessly with their easy to use UI.
  • Storage
  • Compute
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Backups
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Increased VDI
  • Application read/write speeds greatly increased.
  • Increased Remote worker support
  • Higher availabity
  • Easily scalable as business needs expand.
So far so good within the Scale environment. We are currently in year one so only time will tell how everything will age.

Evaluating Scale Computing HC3 and Competitors

Yes - 2 Cisco Blade Servers
1 EMC SAN
VMWare
All were over 5 years old and needed an upgrade.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Price is the main reason we went with Scale Computing. As a mid sized school we are right on the bottom edge of needing a hyper converged option. Scale was way cheaper than other big name options and delivered on many if not all of the same features. Best of all I was able to ditch VMware.
I do not think I would make changes. I sent the required hardware and budgetary numbers to all of the parties who wanted to provide a solution.