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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
14th
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
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd), All-Flash Storage (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of FreeNAS is 3.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 3.7%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ3.7%
FreeNAS3.4%
Other92.9%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Vincenzo D'Aniello - PeerSpot reviewer
Software developer at TREXON S.R.L.
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.
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 program is fast, fun to work on and easy."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"The stability is quite good; our system is in production and we have not had any problems with it, and when a drive fails, we don't really have any disruption because we can easily rebuild the disk, even if it is very large."
"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"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."
"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."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"The technical support is very good but it is expensive."
"With the HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity, we can grow as required."
"3PAR is a stable product; we have used the current device and an older version for more than seven years and although we had accidents with nodes and hard drives, it is high-availability storage and we never had a blackout and we have never been offline."
"It has given us higher performance over our servers/applications, which work better now than with our previous storage system."
"We're using Peer-to-Peer for two data centers and having that fill over instantaneous is what we really needed for disaster recovery."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ is easy to use, fully featured, and has a great graphical user interface."
"The command line is very extensive, a lot of tools so in comparison to other vendors. It's one of the great things about 3PAR, that you can really drill down on performance, get statistics, really know how your system is internally performing."
"The solution is easy to install."
 

Cons

"Make it easier to find out how to fix things when something goes wrong."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"One of my hard drives has failed and the documentation that I've been able to find has not helped."
"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. Sometimes we change our dashboard back to the previous version because the latest version just doesn't work as good."
"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."
"The solution lacks reliability."
"As a management tool, it would help us to have more customer reports."
"OS/patch/firmware installation can only be done by a division of HPE Support, which must be coordinated."
"Cloud integration could be better. They can also add an NVMe to port to that. I would like to see NVMe in the next release. That's the future or the near future for storage. That will give us a real high throughput and some performance."
"We ran into some struggles when we were trying to implement it. Our arrays did not like talking, reading, and writing to each other, therefore, they were causing some hiccups."
"We do not use Memory-Driven Flash in the old 3PAR. Perhaps we will use it in the new 3PAR. That is part of the reason why we are upgrading."
"We had an accident where when we turned on deduplication and we had it active for some of the virtual volumes that we had in our environment, it did actually cause a problem that HP had not heard of previously and had not yet documented that was fixed in a release 2 weeks later, and a software patch 2 weeks later."
"As long as they can keep the solution stable, it will be good. Stability is very important to us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is okay. It suits our needs."
"We use the free version of the program."
"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."
"This product is quite expensive and in addition, we subscribe to 24/7 support with a four-hour response time."
"Nowadays, from a storage point of view, there are so many vendors in the market. So cost is one of the factors that pushed us to go with HPE 3PAR. Cost-wise they're pretty competitive."
"It is fairly inexpensive to scale."
"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."
"The cost is reasonable given that the licensing is all included once you purchase it."
"This solution is expensive. We pay every year for support. It's a lump sum because we pay for data center support services, and everything is included in one."
"The SSD is a little bit expensive."
"It is lower in price as compared to other vendors, such as Dell. As compared to Huawei, all storage solutions are expensive, including this one."
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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
Comms Service Provider
13%
Performing Arts
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
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 Business7
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise74
Large Enterprise170
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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

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: April 2026.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.