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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
5th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Scale Computing Platform is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.0%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Joel-Gonzalez - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides ease of management with great support and easy setup
It provides a dashboard. You can adjust the signature of the drives to prioritize certain servers over others It gives the ease of management for a small IT department. 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…
Vladimir Simion - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support
The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The solution is scalable."
"It gives the ease of management for a small IT department."
"I rate Scale Computing support 10 out of 10. They're accessible and responsive."
"The most valuable features are the appliance-type feel and that you don't need additional licenses as everything is built-in."
"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 product's initial setup phase is too easy."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the nice GUI."
"We went from "no way DB applications would have good performance" to "Wow! We can now actually have a DB running and have some VMs running at the same time.""
"StarWind support has been great in helping resolve other issues not caused by their software."
"The failover protection and the ability to expand storage and nodes with no downtime are by far the best physical features we have benefited from."
"It has allowed me to effectively and confidently manage the maintenance of hosts where I can power off a host and have its VMs migrate to another one."
"Active-active work mode leads to true redundancy of storage and allows us to distribute the load between multiple nodes."
"It has reduced the amount of switching, network connections, etc., because the converged StarWind Virtual SAN allows us to connect high-speed network interfaces between different boxes instead of having to connect SANs via the network, then connect those two clusters together."
"The solution provides great performance for the price it is listed with."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is a very mature software that supersedes its capabilities with my use cases."
 

Cons

"On the fly, you cannot do anything on Scale Computing HC3, though it is a very rarely needed area."
"I would like bigger clusters with more than eight nodes."
"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 snapshot technology takes up 500 times more space compared to other solutions."
"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."
"The product struggles to cope with bigger workloads. In the next release, I'd like some backup solutions to be added."
"Scale HC3 improvements would involve literally fixing up the replication."
"There could be an easier way to see which servers are on each node"
"For me, the product could be improved by it being made cheaper."
"There should be publicly available tutorials on YouTube or other platforms that help the users to integrate this solution with other platforms, for example."
"The configuration can a bit cumbersome."
"While it is possible to implement disk encryption in StarWind using Windows Bitlocker, such a solution can be a little tricky to manage."
"The documentation could be a little more concise, but, for the most part, it just works."
"StarWind Command Center's single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V."
"We ran into an issue with alerts."
"It would be nice to add the ability to use raw partitions instead of file containers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."
"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."
"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very straightforward. They are exactly what you expect."
"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
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?
I have had no setup costs and no challenges with setup and installation for StarWind Virtual SAN. The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
There are times when the feedback in the event of an impending issue or an actual failure can be limited. The remediation steps are usually fairly simple to resolve the issue, but the management GU...
 

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: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.