Case Study: Archway School achieves lower IT operational expenses and improved performance with StarWind Software's HCI Appliance (HCA)

Archway School reduces IT operational expenses by replacing its aging SAN storage with the help of StarWind HCI Appliance (HCA)

Archway School, a secondary school in Gloucestershire, faced an aging Nimble SAN that was out of support, high third‑party maintenance costs, and the prospect of an expensive SAN replacement. They evaluated alternatives (including Dell VRTX and Microsoft S2D) but needed a cost‑effective, reliable hyperconverged platform that would avoid a hypervisor change and reduce failure points.

The school deployed a two‑node StarWind HCI Appliance (all‑flash HCA V‑Spec 24.9 on Hyper‑V), which replaced the SAN and removed the need for costly iSCSI switching. The new HCI cut hardware footprint, energy use and heat output, improved performance via all‑flash and DAS interfaces, and provided sufficient redundancy—delivering lower operational expenses and a simpler, more reliable infrastructure.

Archway School

James Moth

IT Manager