1. Home
  2. Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Systems
  3. StarWind HCA Reviews
  4. User Review of StarWind HCA
Very happy with the product and the support!
August 17, 2022

Very happy with the product and the support!

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

Overall Satisfaction with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)

We are a company with about 50 employees and StarWind HCA is the backbone of our on-prem IT infrastructure. It runs 4 Windows Server VMs in a high-availability cluster + 2 Domain Controllers. When I started at the company everything was run off a single bare-metal server install and downtime was common. Since migrating to StarWind HCA performance has improved and downtime has been reduced to almost 0.
  • A single off-the-shelf solution for a high-availability system (usually entails a mix of solutions)
  • Support is excellent. Responses are prompt and reps are knowledgeable.
  • Relatively low cost
  • Command Center (web portal) management is slow and clunky. I find it easier to manage directly from the node OS.
  • Scalability could be problematic for larger/faster-growing companies
  • We used to have a couple hours a week of downtime when we ran everything on a single bare-metal server install. Since migrating to StarWind HCA we have almost 0 downtime.
StarWind has been very proactive about reaching out when they detect even a potential issue on their end. In fact most of my support sessions have been initiated by them due to something they noticed in the logs on their end, not something we noticed. Not sure if any of these issues would have ever been critical for us, but its nice to know that they are being proactive about potential issues and keeping us up-to-date on firmware and updates.
We have not had any downtime/outages due to issues with StarWind HCA

Do you think StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA)'s feature set?

Yes

Did StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) again?

Yes

Windows Server, Windows Server Failover Clustering, Veeam Backup & Replication, LogMeIn Pro
StarWind HCA is ideal for small and medium sized businesses who want to run their servers on-site and desire high-availability on a budget. Their support handles the initial software setup/configuration and leave you with a hypervisor that is ready to be loaded with VMs and utilized. Once setup it is easy to manage and reliable, and if you do encounter issues support is responsive and effective. Probably not the ideal solution for large enterprises or fast-growing companies since I imagine it's more difficult to scale than some other solutions - but if you have a somewhat consistent performance/storage needs, want the benefits of a HA cluster, and want to host things yourself, it is an excellent solution.