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HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs NetApp AFF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
301
Ranking in other categories
NAS (7th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd)
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
310
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 2.8%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 10.7%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Q&A Highlights

Jan 28, 2016
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
Wayne Cross - PeerSpot reviewer
Very stable and scales quickly, allowing us to roll out new services
At one point, we had HPE EVAs and when we were changing them out we didn't just look at 3PAR, we looked at all the solutions. We actually started out with a V400 which is an older version of the 3PAR - they didn't have the 7400s as yet - at our data center. Eventually, when the V400 became end-of-life, we looked at all the EVAs and by that time, they had come out with the 7400 and 7200, which are a lot less expensive and a better fit for a smaller organization. We were able to throw any workload on it and not worry about performance. It certainly made my job easy and my team's job easy in terms of maintenance and management of the platform.
Anna Sofo - PeerSpot reviewer
Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency
I like NetApp AFF's deduplication. The solution's AutoSupport feature is efficient and effective because customers are notified of potential issues before they experience problems with NetApp. The support is sold based on metro clusters, so they guarantee the client's business continuity. NetApp has an Active IQ app that allows you to get information on your smartphone.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"I appreciate the performance."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."
"The latency is good."
"I like the integration with VMware and the provisioning. We also use data compression but not for any of the critical applications."
"I like that 3PAR can remake the disk online. That's one of the best features because when we first started, that was the best. The team provisioning feature was also a good one. Those features are the best for me, provisioning and online optimization, and the tier you can have for storage."
"We use for our tier one and two apps, so they can do failover, synchronous replication."
"The solution, stability, and the performance work well for us."
"It allows us to cohost as needed. We are able to put more systems on one data storage system and it is still able to deliver the availability and speed that we need it to deliver."
"It provides ​very fast deployment. The performance for our most critical applications is very quick."
"Being able to provision drives on demand, as opposed to populating a whole stack of drives and not using them. In the latter scenario, you are locking your money in, you don't get a return on investment. On the fly, you can build up your storage as needed, so that's a very good feature."
"We built a DR solution based on this, we can sustain our business for any amount of time, 24/7."
"I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it."
"The speed, inline deduplication, and compression are really nice. It's also just easy to manage. We use Snapshot and SnapMirror offsite, which give us some good recovery options."
"Storage is very reliable. You don't have to do much maintenance."
"It is user-friendly. Everybody can use it, not just the technical people."
"It's very stable. It's always there when we need it. With the Dual Controller, if one drops out, the other one comes right online. We don't use any iSCSI so there is a little bit of a latency break but, over the NFS, we don't notice that switch-on. We can do maintenance in the middle of the day, literally rip a whole controller out of the chassis, and do what we need to do with it."
"I work on the infrastructure engineering side. I usually get to install NetApp appliances, and I like how easy the installation is. It seems to be easier than other technologies that we use."
"Supports file formatting, the main protocols, and the hot swapping of disks and features."
"Before, we didn't have standardized storage, so adopting the solution across our organization has allowed us the ability to provide data across all our sites and dramatically improve our backup and disaster."
 

Cons

"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"The software layer has to improve."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"As long as they can keep the solution stable, it will be good. Stability is very important to us."
"I would like to have single click upgrades because the process is cumbersome right now."
"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."
"I want artificial intelligence. I don't want anybody from my team to touch it anymore. I want the AI to do everything."
"I think cloud integration would probably be the biggest part, because that's where everyone is going and the seamless integration between on-premise and cloud is an important part of any IT strategy today."
"Although we experienced malfunctions where a virus was running and it failed."
"This solution only provides active-passive replication, as opposed to active-active."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ is at its end of life and they are forcing us to purchase new hardware. They will no longer support this solution. They should provide support for a longer time. For example, 10 years instead of five years."
"To be more competitive in the industry, they can develop deduplication, compression, and smarter features in the same array instead of all-flash."
"The Bezels need improvement."
"This is an expensive solution that could be cheaper."
"We only had a few upgrade issues."
"The upgrade process could be a lot quicker, but it's still good as it is. The failovers and things like that are harder than expected."
"You have a limit in terms of how much you can expand storage. It sounds like a lot. However, over the years, as you grow, it may be smaller than you think."
"Their customer support can be better. When we have an outage, we need to wait until it is escalated to L3 which takes a lot of time."
"I would like for them to develop the ability to detach the fabric pool. Once you've added it to an aggregate it's there for life and it would be nice to disconnect it if we ever had to."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"We went with 3PAR because we have HP-UX systems. Since we already knew HP-UX, they offered us a significantly cheaper solution than the one that we had for storage."
"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."
"It is a bit more expensive. IBM is cheaper than HPE in Turkey."
"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."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"Since the prices of the flash storage has gone down tremendously, I would definitely recommend going for the all-flash storage array or 3PAR. It is a big expensive even now, but it will be the future of all industries."
"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."
"You need to properly assess your needs before buying the solution since there are chances of overpaying. The type of configuration that you choose can make the price go higher or lower."
"The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
"Disk level encryption is already in the solution, but it is very costly. Its pricing should come down."
"I understand the cost is less than many other storages of same/similar performance benchmark."
"It depends on how you look at things, but they are in a higher price range."
"The price of the upgrading of the solution is high. I could buy a whole unit of All Flash FAS 300 with a shelf for around $285,000. Yet if I want to add one additional shelf, it'll cost me $275,000. So they want you to upgrade by replacing it. It's cheaper to buy a whole new unit than to just scale out. The upside is they last. AFF lasts us three or four years. So that's a good investment."
"Our total cost of ownership (TCO) has decreased by 40 percent."
"We have used the solution’s thin provisioning to add new applications without having to purchase additional storage. We use thin provisioning on all of our flash arrays at this point. It gives us the choice to be able to overprovision and take advantage of compression, compaction, and thin provisioning all at the same time. We can get more out of the purchases that we make."
"In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016
The best honest answer really anyone can give is that it depends. Pricing in and of itself has so many variables including the nature of the deal, the technical need (what I'm sure you're after), and quite honestly the competition. These factors all come into play. My advise is that my Solutions Architect who is an SME in both of these brands has already commented on this blog and I'm ...
2 out of 47 answers
Jan 22, 2016
…I am confused – data protection is built in with the implementation of RAID 5+3 and the backups will be down to their current chosen backup strategy?!
it_user331356 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 22, 2016
Hello Ariel, I don't have practical experience with NetApp AFF 8020 so I can tell you only the same thing what you can find on the Internet. Sorry. Best Regards Best Regards Milos Kurtes, System Administrator, Alison Parkmore Technology Park, Galway, EIRCODE: H91 E309, Ireland www.alison.com Free Online Interactive Skills Training & Certification Full Course List [image: ALISON Small Logo]
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
85%
Computer Software Company
2%
Financial Services Firm
2%
Manufacturing Company
2%
Educational Organization
64%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.
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 perspectiv...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE 3PAR StoreServ?
The tool’s price is higher compared to other products. The solution is 20% more expensive than other storage.
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.