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FreeNAS vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 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

FreeNAS
Ranking in NAS
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in NAS
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
302
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd), All-Flash Storage (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of FreeNAS is 2.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 3.5%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Vincenzo D'Aniello - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versions automatically enabled the Linux kernel, yet with the recent version, this was no longer the case. Now, there was the possibility of being able to create Debian-based jails, and finding the documentation was not easy or fast. That said, in the end, we succeeded. If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented.
Muhammad Saqib - PeerSpot reviewer
Uninterrupted upgrades accelerate performance with good support
I would rate the solution eight out of ten. It should be noted that in Pakistan, some parts are not readily available, and we need to import them from Singapore or other countries. We encountered an issue with a customer where the midplane failed and was not available. We had to wait for several days for a replacement, even in a 24/7 support case. Additionally, we faced motherboard failures in the customer's environment, encountering two motherboard failures simultaneously. We obtained one motherboard immediately, yet had to wait ten days for another. These issues should have been resolved promptly given the 24/7 support level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"Provides High-Availability, security, and high performance"
"The technical support is good."
"It has allowed us to set up a fully functioning disaster recovery site with replication, which we have been able to configure between our 3PAR systems."
"The Call Home feature is really a great feature, so I do not need to monitor the 3PAR. The 3PAR team is monitoring it and letting me know if there are any problems."
"We went to an Active-Active data center, set it up to where both data centers are separate, but they act as one. We can have workloads at either side at any given time, and it is all based on the Peer Persistence architecture."
"Any action we want to do with a Dell EMC product needs a license. But with 3PAR's converged solution, at least there is no need to purchase more licenses to get the all the features that we need. We can get basic and mid-range features without licenses."
"The deduplication is pretty impressive because it will shrink. We also do some clones in addition to the snapshots, where we can have multiple clones. These reduce the actual written storage by as much as 50 percent."
"The features which are most valuable are the availability of the system and the management."
 

Cons

"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"In new releases, I'd really like to see it more targeted towards hyper-converged. They are working that way with Greenlake and integrating their own "build your own" expansion environment within 3PAR."
"They should add AI-enabled dashboards to the solution."
"The first array that they sent us was in some type of a factory mode. We didn't find that out until we loaded a bunch of data onto it, then we had to back it all off. We had to replace the array, which was sort of painful."
"I would like to see compatibility with NVMe."
"We had a minor error when we were configuring this system, which initially detracted from its overall stability."
"HPE could improve by making an old flash system in order to compete with the current market. For the solution to be more competitive in the mid-range market they could increase the performance."
"Setting up 3PAR is somewhat complicated, and it took about a week."
"We would also like to see improvements to the ease of administration of 3PAR."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use the free version of the program."
"Its price is okay. It suits our needs."
"For our configuration, we pay a little bit less than €10,000 ($12,000 USD) per year."
"Its licensing cost is based on the hardware capacity."
"The support for the solution is free for three years, then it is an additional cost. It is approximately $30,000 annually. The price includes a lot of equipment we have not only HPE 3PAR StoreServ."
"Its price is a bit high for adding another tree, but when we purchased it, it was okay with us. We had compared it with EMC and other solutions, and it was okay at that point in time. Our storage has a lifespan of seven to eight years. When you purchase it, you need to keep a headroom of around 40% to 50%. After three to four years, you generally plan for an upgrade. The price is not so bad today for two years or so, and within a year, I might find that I have to upgrade or increase the storage. This usually happens when there is a radical change or a new application has come that is consuming a lot of data, but generally, there is a plan for the amount of data that we generate and the storage upgrade."
"We do not have any licensing fees."
"The main issue with 3PAR right now is its cost problem. Right now, there are some other storage cabinets that can do what 3PAR can do. Now, they can do it as well with a more revised budget."
"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."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"The solution has two parts: software and hardware, and you need to buy licenses for some features."
"We purchased the solution as CapEx and we only pay support now. I find the pricing fantastic."
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Comparison Review

it_user182013 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Educational Organization
86%
Computer Software Company
2%
Manufacturing Company
1%
Financial Services Firm
1%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FreeNAS?
The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps.
What needs improvement with FreeNAS?
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versi...
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?
It is expensive, however, when we compare it to the features provided by HPE, the price-to-performance ratio is very good.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Morroni Technologies Inc., Creative Integrations
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Find out what your peers are saying about FreeNAS vs. HPE 3PAR StoreServ and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.