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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)
6th
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 (8th), All-Flash Storage (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 5.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 11.8%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ11.8%
Dell EqualLogic PS series5.0%
Other83.2%
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 technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."
"The solution has been working well overall."
"Dell's technical support is very good."
"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 solution has been working well overall."
"The product is very stable."
"You can always trust it. It is stable."
"We've dealt with technical support and have found them to be helpful and responsive."
"The main reason behind procuring HP products is that the suppliers are located nearby."
"3PAR stability has been there since day one, and it's one of the platforms that has just been a joy to work with because it changed the way that we are able to protect our entire environment."
"3PAR has enabled us to bring additional services to the organization that we wouldn't have been able to bring on, giving us the flexibility of just not worrying about the infrastructure and giving the business the confidence to roll out services."
"3PAR is different from other storage solutions because it uses a chunklet when we initiate the storage. Every disk is submitted as a 1 GB chunklet. This chunklet can be RAID 1, 4, 5, or 6. This fabulous feature is very useful for me because I can distribute the RAID for any volume. The adaptive optimization is the biggest feature in 3PAR. 3PAR is very usable with thin volume because it detects zeros while writing. Every time I tell the hypervisor to make the full provisioning, it makes the volume as simple provisioning in 3PAR, not full provisioning. Other vendors take this volume as thick provisioning because of which the capacity is reached quickly. It doesn't happen in 3PAR because it detects zeros. It only writes the data, and it doesn't write zeros. There are two processors in 3PAR: the ASIC processor and the main processor. The ASIC processor detects zero writing and doesn't write it, which is a big feature in 3PAR."
"We have been able to back up our data more frequently now that we have everything on flash. It responds a lot faster, so the IOPs are a lot faster."
"I find the HPE 3PAR StoreServ valuable for its ease of use and resilience, which is beneficial."
"HPE 3PAR has all the common storage features like cell provisioning and deduplication, and usually the solution is chosen by the customer as they have a preference or the setup is already in their environment."
"The 3PAR tool is cheaper to maintain with more storage available."
 

Cons

"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve the performance because in our hybrid configuration the read speed is faster than the write speed."
"The searchable online documentation is missing."
"The performance was never very good, and its latency was higher than expected."
"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."
"The only challenging part in the tool was related to some site recovery area. In order to exploit the site recovery area, my company had to purchase additional VMware products."
"Do not go for EQL. It will be out of production in a few years."
"There is no option for mixing RAID types in one device."
"The searchable online documentation is missing.​"
"Would like to see ​some management functions through a web interface.​"
"The newer versions have some other characteristics that we are not using. We would like to use them and set them up in our current version."
"Ease of updating."
"I would like to see more virtualization: storage virtualization, data virtualization would be very nice."
"Cost, it is still fairly expensive, cost could go down to make this technology more popular in the market."
"I would like to see a proper unified system (same controller serving both SAN and NAS solutions) such as NetApp offers."
"Better user interface compared to the current PC installed client."
"The solution could improve by being able to handle larger data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​It is a fair price."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"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."
"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"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."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"3PAR was quite a bit less money than EMC, and that was one of the deciding factors."
"To be more competitive, as customer, we need a more aggressive price that includes all the licenses available."
"We purchased the total package for approximately $60,000."
"The price of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is reasonable, but buying upgrade licenses are priced very high. There are additional fees."
"The licensing fee is not cheap."
"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."
"It makes for less administrative overhead."
"You can't get software maintenance from a third party. You have to do it from HPE, which is a letdown."
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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
13%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software 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.
892,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.