No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dell EqualLogic PS series vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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

Dell EqualLogic PS series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
NAS (6th), All-Flash Storage (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 4.7%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 10.8%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ10.8%
Dell EqualLogic PS series4.7%
Other84.5%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Khuram Ayyaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Executive at Virtual University
Has enabled uninterrupted access to educational platforms and simplified storage management
Dell EqualLogic PS series is easily scalable, and we can add extra boxes and storage. It was easy to deploy during COVID. Deploying Dell EqualLogic PS series is straightforward, with no complexity involved. Dell EqualLogic PS series is a good product. We did not experience any failures in the last six to seven years, and it is still running as our storage for offline data. There are snapshot capabilities in data protection available, but we did not use that feature because it consumes much space. We have only 150 terabytes of space and simply use it to create volumes without utilizing it for snapshots. We use thin provisioning in Dell EqualLogic PS series, but I did not explore that feature further.
CO
Information Systems & Security Administrator at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Ease of use in data center boosts resilience and infrastructure efficiency
I find the HPE 3PAR StoreServ valuable for its ease of use and resilience, which is beneficial. The main benefits I have seen from having HPE 3PAR StoreServ include its use at a small branch I managed for about three years with around 60 users. It operates effectively because it is an HPE product we use there. I have not experienced any significant issues besides occasional IT-related ones, such as local database problems. Since handing over the administration of the system to someone else and moving to another department, there have not been any issues. There are many features that exist but I haven't needed to try. Before moving out of that role in my organization, I knew it was a product I enjoyed working with for infrastructure purposes. After completing my new role, I intend to return to infrastructure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution can scale."
"We've dealt with technical support and have found them to be helpful and responsive."
"I have been using Equallogic arrays for myself and my customers for over seven years now, and they continue to be my gold standard for SMB storage."
"Technical support is great; we have four-hour support from Dell for storage."
"The technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."
"The solution has been extremely consistent over the years, we've had absolutely no issues with the product at all, and it's lasted a long time without causing any problems."
"The most valuable feature of Dell EqualLogic PS series auto tiering by using this feature, the customer can get higher performance on a valuable budget."
"You can always trust it. It is stable."
"We never had a blackout and we have never been offline."
"I see the value in investing in 3PAR."
"We have been able to scale faster and get our applications out in much less time, and we don't need to worry about the platform's ability to manage the workload, so we are pretty happy."
"They give us high availability and real-time access to data in both locations."
"It has been very stable. We've had very minor issues, but I've loved how HPE is proactive on letting us know. Usually, they let us know before we notice it ourselves and they already have a solution for us. It has been great that way."
"It is worry-free. I do not have to sit there and tend it."
"The compression features are good."
"3PAR is easy to keep running and does not require too much effort. It has been very reliable, which is key."
 

Cons

"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve the performance because in our hybrid configuration the read speed is faster than the write speed."
"It is at the end of support and no longer supported. We have to move our VMware to another storage platform, and we have decided to use Dell PowerStore. We like Dell's products, and it is a new platform with a lot of features."
"It's kind of expensive when you buy the EqualLogic solution because, as you grow, you have to keep buying another controller. It can be more expensive with time."
"We are having some issues right now where some of the database operations are recovering and we find there are so many IOPS that EqualLogic fans cannot handle it."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve the performance because in our hybrid configuration the read speed is faster than the write speed."
"Why is it not possible for both controllers to be simultaneously active (load balancing)?"
"There is no option for mixing RAID types in one device."
"We need more space and we can't get any."
"This solution only provides active-passive replication, as opposed to active-active."
"Their installation and design engineers leave something to be desired."
"It could improve in the virtualization of the storage."
"I would like to have more details on alerting. It is not real granular right now."
"The setup was complex from the perspective of the employees having to go through five days of training. If they simplified the administrative process of maintaining the unit, that would go a long way."
"I would like to see, obviously, regular disks and more storage on them."
"We have had a few issues with it. We had our virtual environment lock up a few times on storage-based things."
"In most cases Pure Storage is better. It's better overall, and allows us to scale up faster, the cost of ownership's lower, and the replication across areas is good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"​It is a fair price."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"I didn't buy it. It was another person seven years ago. So, I don't really know, but all storage platforms cost a lot of money. It is probably in the mid-range, but you get what you pay for."
"The licensing fee is not cheap."
"We have seen ROI. We are able to see more patients now, bringing more money into the practice."
"It is quite difficult to decide on the cost. At one point, I was the project lead to cover with some people, but the price was important and we had its compression calculated. At that moment, it was fair because that was one of the things moving their product due to the cost of HPE 3PAR StoreServ as they were competing with Hitachi and IBM A9000, which I'm not sure if is still available."
"We had to go back and purchase iLO licenses and brocade switches for the flex fabric to have a complete solution."
"There was a one-time cost when we procured this product and there are no monthly or yearly licensing fees."
"The cost is reasonable given that the licensing is all included once you purchase it."
"3PAR was quite a bit less money than EMC, and that was one of the deciding factors."
"We don't pay for any licensing fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) solutions are best for your needs.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user182013 - PeerSpot reviewer
Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
May 1, 2015
Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR
Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise74
Large Enterprise170
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The technical support for the solution was really good.
What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?
I do not have anything in mind regarding new capabilities for Dell products at this time.
What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?
We are essentially a university, and we have deployed Dell EqualLogic PS series in our data centers to run our production sites, student portals, websites, our on-premises portal, and campus manage...
What's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?
HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspective, it is reliable, easy to set up, stable, and offers quality block storage. All...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE 3PAR StoreServ?
As a customer, I always prefer to have a lower price. Any customer will always ask for the cheaper price.
 

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series
HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. HPE 3PAR StoreServ and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.