We performed a comparison between Scale Computing HC3 and StarWind Virtual Tape Library based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two HCI solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."I like the asynchronous replication and failover features. They are what I'm primarily using it for. The asynchronous replication is helpful because our servers are backed up continuously throughout the day. If anything goes wrong we just fail over immediately. That is a very nice feature to have."
"The most valuable feature for us is having the ability to configure our local storage using a limited number of disks and using the StarWind VSAN software to keep the cluster nodes in perfect sync."
"The Windows-based StarWind GUI is easy to use and understand and integrates seamlessly with VMware's vSphere portal as well."
"Integration with virtualization platforms helped us to resolve many issues we were facing while using the physical storage."
"VSAN works great; it's very easy to install, configure, and manage."
"The product creates opportunities with hybrid on-premise solutions."
"The installation of StarWind Virtual SAN was pretty easy, and the configuration was done in no time."
"The iSCSI protocol is quite simple to configure."
"I rate Scale Computing support 10 out of 10. They're accessible and responsive."
"The product's initial setup phase is too easy."
"The most valuable feature of Scale Computing HC3 is if one of the devices fails, you won't even notice, the service maintains operation. The customers don't have to waste two, or three days on delays. Additionally, you do not have to waste time with recovery software, it is a lot easier."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the nice GUI."
"The most valuable features are the appliance-type feel and that you don't need additional licenses as everything is built-in."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"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 solution is scalable."
"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."
"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."
"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."
"The solution made our backups way more reliable."
"It is a stable solution."
"Management tools could be improved, sometimes the usage seems to be slowed down and confusing. A native web interface could also be an option. I love to see in the future port of the software on a general Linux distribution like RedHat or Ubuntu in order to avoid windows license costs. I would also like to see features like erasure coding implemented. On the VSAN software, I would like to see some improvements in the storage pools (eliminate the usage of the file as a data container and use the raw partition)."
"I would like to see an extensive set of cmdlets that could allow for easier automation as well as status management."
"It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery."
"I would definitely like to see quite a bit more on the monitoring side of things."
"There should be publicly available tutorials on YouTube or other platforms that help the users to integrate this solution with other platforms, for example."
"There is one issue as far as licensing goes and that is a lack of documentation online for users when transitioning from the free version to the paid version, or vice versa."
"The system performs as expected, but we're always looking for performance improvements regarding the best utilization of NVMe disks."
"While we had no problems setting the system up, and service technicians from StarWind could assist us very well, they could provide some form of in-depth documentation."
"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 product could use a better control center."
"I would like bigger clusters with more than eight nodes."
"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."
"On the fly, you cannot do anything on Scale Computing HC3, though it is a very rarely needed area."
"Scale HC3 improvements would involve literally fixing up the replication."
"The snapshot technology takes up 500 times more space compared to other solutions."
"The product struggles to cope with bigger workloads. In the next release, I'd like some backup solutions to be added."
"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."
"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."
"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."
"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."
More StarWind Virtual Tape Library Pricing and Cost Advice →
Scale Computing HC3 is ranked 21st in HCI with 8 reviews while StarWind Virtual Tape Library is ranked 15th in HCI with 6 reviews. Scale Computing HC3 is rated 7.8, while StarWind Virtual Tape Library is rated 10.0. The top reviewer of Scale Computing HC3 writes "A reliable stripped-down solution that comes with excellent support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind Virtual Tape Library writes "Flexible and reliable with helpful support". Scale Computing HC3 is most compared with VMware vSAN, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), VxRail, Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure and HPE SimpliVity, whereas StarWind Virtual Tape Library is most compared with Red Hat Ceph Storage, HPE StoreVirtual and StorMagic SvSAN. See our Scale Computing HC3 vs. StarWind Virtual Tape Library report.
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