HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera comparison

HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. HPE 3PAR StoreServ is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.5, while HPE Primera is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.1. HPE 3PAR StoreServ holds a 2.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to HPE Primera’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of HPE 3PAR StoreServ users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of HPE Primera users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera compete in enterprise storage solutions. HPE Primera appears to have the upper hand due to its superior features and user satisfaction.

Features: HPE 3PAR StoreServ is noted for its performance, reliability, and competitive pricing. HPE Primera offers advanced AI-driven management, predictive analytics, and seamless upgradability with enhanced data protection.

Room for Improvement: HPE 3PAR StoreServ needs more intuitive management software, better scalability options, and updates in usability. HPE Primera could improve in initial setup complexity, maintenance costs, and setup processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE 3PAR StoreServ generally has a straightforward deployment process. HPE Primera users report higher satisfaction with customer service and post-deployment support.

Pricing and ROI: HPE 3PAR StoreServ is cost-effective with favorable ROI due to lower initial setup costs. HPE Primera, despite higher upfront costs, provides excellent ROI through advanced features and enhanced performance.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera

January 2025

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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

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 HPE Primera is 3.8%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

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.

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Wayne Cross

Director of cyber security at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

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.

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Taufeeq Rauf

Head of IT at NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATION TECHNOLOGIES (PVT.) LTD.

Offers a simple user interface and is useful for data replication

I use HPE Primera for mission-critical applications. My company uses the product as a storage solution for our machines. The availability of HPE Primera in our company is critical for us, considering that we operate in an HA environment where we can't have downtime since we need to deal with cheque clearance for banks. The product's interface is simple to use. I am satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The ease of use of the product's interface has directly had an impact on our company's operations, along with the improvement in the availability and performance of machines. Compared to HPE Primera, I work with a much more reliable storage solution like Dell PowerStore. Compared to HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore's features related to deduplication are very good, and it also offers a physical storage capacity of eight TB, which can be expanded up to forty TB. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it only after taking into consideration their usage and requirements. From the price and performance point of view, Dell PowerStore is a better choice. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"The solution is scalable."

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."

"I appreciate the performance."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Our applications are now at least two to four times faster."

"It has helped a lot for times when our customers do DR testing. Instead of having to spin down and spin up, I can do it live and seamless. I do not have to schedule downtime with an organization."

"I have a lot of applications that need higher IOPS, and 3PAR achieves this operation normally without any issues for the management."

"It has improved uptime, as well as speed to delivery."

"I like the speed capabilities that it provides. The deduplication features definitely have some huge potential. The latest firmware, where they've enabled compression for workloads that aren't very good for deduplication, I can definitely see huge potential there."

"We use a virtual domain in 3PAR and we can create individual pools where clients are able to manage their own resources, instead of we, as storage admin, getting involved in that."

"It is easy to set up, easy to use, and user-friendly. It is easier to work with HPE 3PAR than with Hitachi. Its technical support is also good."

"It was the easiest SAN that I have ever set up."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ pros

"We sold Primera to a public university, and they're happy with it. They have been using it for about four months with no significant problems."

"The most important thing that we had found when we purchased this product around six months back was its 100% availability and uptime."

"The greatest advantage is the support when we encounter incidents, as HPE's support is highly responsive."

"HPE Primera is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes."

"HPE Primera is used for shared storage."

"HPE Primera provides me with system reliability and 100% data reliability. The storage is good and is consistently reliable and scalable, allowing me to use it whenever needed. The overall performance is great. The product is stable. The customer service and support is excellent. It's a commendable solution, especially suitable for online transactions. It is reliable in meeting data requirements."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The interface is simplified."

More HPE Primera pros

Cons

"It is on the expensive side."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"From an overall perspective, all the latest technologies can improve support and performance. This is very important for us."

"I would like to see more flexibility with the cloud. I've actually just been in a presentation about it, here at HPE Discover 2018, so those features are coming."

"Sometimes control is rebooting and nobody knows why, so there are issues."

"We need longer names for our volumes. Now it's only 28 characters. It should be 64, or at least more than 32 characters."

"Needs more flexibility and expansion, and also relocation, a cloud solution."

"We would like to see better support for iSCSI."

"The cloud-based monitoring Infosight would be better if users are automatically enrolled in the cloud/group based on the configuration or information gathered or uploaded on the internet."

"Upgrades on them are a bit tricky. For us to do a head swap on one is a full outer joiner storage frame, which is obviously not that easy to do in a production environment."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ cons

"Primera should be more user-friendly."

"There are certain shortcomings in the technical support offered by HPE where improvements are required."

"Some application solutions can be more acceptable on the HPE Primera site."

"The solution has good performance but it could improve further."

"HPE Primera's pricing model is an area of concern and can be considered for improvement."

"The product's stale snapshots feature needs improvement."

"Only HPE can manage the product."

"There really isn't any aspect of the solution that needs improvement for the customer other than its price."

More HPE Primera cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution could be reduced for the license and for support."

"Making the decisions to buy it can be complex."

"We have seen ROI. We are able to see more patients now, bringing more money into the practice."

"We paid for five years of support when we purchased the product."

"It is a bit more expensive. IBM is cheaper than HPE in Turkey."

"We purchased the total package for approximately $60,000."

"It is a little more money, but it is worth it because it does it better."

"The price of the license depends. Some people expect more from the hardware. Some expect more from the licensing, and that is because you can receive several licenses nowadays, such as the terabyte license. You buy the storage, and you pay extra for the terabyte license for the software. There is a one-time purchase for the license and you pay annually for the maintenance."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ pricing and cost advice

"The license for HPE Primera is all-inclusive."

"The price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."

"Because it has high availability, the cost is above average. The cost depends upon the sizing, and every customer has a different size. It is slightly above average in terms of cost compared to its competitors, but the value add was that they could know what their maintenance cost was going to be going forward. They knew what their renewal or expansion costs would be."

"The tool is expensive. I can say that HPE Primera is one of the costliest tools in the market."

"There is only a one-time license purchase needed and no additional costs. If HP could reduce the training cost, then that would be advantageous to the seller."

"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"The pricing for HDD was good."

"I rate the product's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user182013

Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at Rubrik

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…

Read full review

Answers from the Community

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot

Dec 17, 2021

What's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?

See 2 answers

Janet Staver

Tech Blogger

Dec 15, 2021

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 of the capabilities of the hardware (including snapshot, replication, and other specific features) come with it, so there is no need for an additional license. In addition, the AI advantages and analytics with InfoSight are definitely powerful. With HPE Primera you are guaranteed great performance with excellent low latency. The AI driven interface is for hybrid cloud, and it also provides insights into any virtualized infrastructure such as proactive recommendations, performance issues, etc. Whatsmore, the dashboards are also great and user-friendly. And the customization capabilities HPE Primera gives you are excellent. From my experience using HPE Primera, there isn’t any real aspect of the solution that needs to be improved other than its high price point. HPE 3par Storeserv is also easy to use and set up. The solution is robust and makes data performance much faster. The data replication feature of HPE 3par does a good job of replicating data cleanly over to a second site. HPE 3par Storeserv also makes it easy to make changes without it affecting your environment. In addition, it comes with a lot of screens with adjustable settings, which makes management easier. Moreover, it is easy to scale, it is very stable, has a very good interface, is reliable, and also allows you to have tiered storage. However, HPE 3par has limitations when it comes to the number of IOPS the system can do and has limited flexibility in regards to building replication solutions. Conclusion: Ultimately, I chose HPE Primera because 3par Storeserv does not have integration with cloud services, which is something I need.

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Manager7a60

Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 17, 2021

@Janet Staver great summary, couldn't have said it better. However, please note that HPE 3PAR has file support while Primera doesn't. So, weigh that with your use case and requirements.

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Educational Organization

85%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

45%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE 3PAR StoreServ?

The compression features are good.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?

HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Primera?

For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Primera?

The solution is quite cost-effective. HPE Primera is about a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than Dell NVMe.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 38% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 7% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 5% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 29% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2024

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ

January 2025

Download HPE 3PAR StoreServ product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

January 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

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

Primera

Learn More

Pure Storage

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

HPE 3PAR StoreServ is an AI-driven storage solution that prevents issues before they occur by learning and adjusting in real time. The solution offers a tier-1 all-flash foundation for mission-critical workloads. HPE 3PAR StoreServ was designed with more than 3M IOPS and consistent sub-ms latency. It aims to transform midrange and enterprise deployments with solutions that scale from a few TBs to more than 20PBs. In addition, the solution is built to modernize data centers and is made to handle unpredictable workloads effortlessly. By implementing HPE 3PAR StoreServ, you gain automated and rapid provisioning, hardware-accelerated deduplication and compression, and a multi-tenant design.

HPE 3PAR StoreServ Features

HPE 3PAR StoreServ has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Flexibility: With HPE 3PAR StoreServ, you can easily deploy highly configurable, scale-out storage for multi-tenant workloads.

Always-on availability for your data: HPE 3PAR StoreServ includes an always-on resilient storage infrastructure for your hypervisors and applications. In addition, with Peer Persistence, your virtual machines (VMs), hosts, and data can move freely across data centers rather than being constrained by their physical boundaries.

Fast, scalable performance: HPE 3PAR StoreServ enables you to accelerate consistent mixed-workload performance and also provides necessary QoS levels that are optimized for your highest priority applications.

Performance insights: HPE 3PAR StoreServ helps you gain performance insights in real time, and anticipate as well as prevent issues across the infrastructure stack by utilizing cross-stack analytics.

Flash optimized data protection: With tier-1 data services, multi-tenant security, and copy data management, you can avoid downtime.

Seamless data mobility: HPE 3PAR StoreServ makes it possible for you to not only experience converged data protection, but also experience seamless data mobility services, at flash speed, from the edge to the cloud.

HPE 3PAR StoreServ Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Easy to manage. The web interface to manage the units is a great asset and one that makes managing storage easy.

User-friendly GUI

Exceptionally fast and well-managed replication
Low latency

Hybrid storage gives you the ability to assign different roles to different types of storage arrays inside one enclosure

Both file-level and block-level replication

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the HPE 3PAR StoreServ solution.

A SAN Consultant at a tech services company says, “One of the features that I like the most is the data replication element. The reason I like it is due to the fact that it's pretty clean on replicating data over to a second site. The product stands on its own in heavy enterprise environments. It's easy to make changes without affecting the environment. The solution is very easy to use. The product is very robust and offers very good performance.”

A Storage Manager at a financial services firm mentions, "There are a lot of screens for easy management where you can change some settings. But after a few years, the important settings were better after an upgrade, and all the vendors have other ways to upgrade their systems."

A Senior IT Infrastructure & Data Center Operation Engineer at Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) comments, “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.”

HPE introduces HPE Primera, a new storage platform designed to deliver superior simplicity, availability, and performance for mission-critical applications
HPE Primera advances the HPE Intelligent Data Platform, a portfolio of products and solutions designed to help customers transition from delivering storage to unlocking business value with intelligent data

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC

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Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera

January 2025

Free Report: HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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