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 #15 with an average rating of 8.1, while HPE Primera is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.9. HPE 3PAR StoreServ holds a 3.0% mindshare in AFS, compared to HPE Primera’s 3.9% 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.

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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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera

July 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 July 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 3.0%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 3.9%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Muhammad Saqib

System Engineer at Hybrid Tech

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.

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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 most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

"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."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"We choose 3PAR for its speed. It's so fast and reliable."

"HPE 3PAR StoreServ is easy to use, fully featured and has a great graphical user interface."

"So far, we have yet to have a disk fail on either system, other than one I forced to fail when we first got the system in. So the reliability of the 3PAR system has been outstanding."

"It has helped with more than just serving data, but also with recovery."

"The most valuable feature of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is its storage capabilities."

"The solution is quite stable and scalable."

"The solutions has increased our performance. We went from 24,000 IOPS to around 70,000 IOPS."

"Previously, we were using EVA from HPE. When we moved to 3PAR, we noticed a reduction in footprint, reduced by more than 30%. We use the Adaptive Optimization, giving us a reduction in cost and with better performance."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ pros

"The initial setup is simple."

"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."

"It is stable and reliable."

"The product has better replication features than the previous products."

"HPE Primera is an all-flash storage product that's very stable and has a higher storage capacity. It can also give better ROI compared to NetApp."

"The system is stable, particularly with mission-critical solutions in place."

"All of the capabilities of the hardware such as replication, snapshot, and the specific features are all included from the start as opposed to being on another license."

"HPE provides good support through their customer service."

More HPE Primera pros

Cons

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"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."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The Unified Multiprotocol Access to the storage array needs to be improved."

"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."

"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."

"I would like to see a little better integration with OneView and provisioning ESX Hosts."

"The price is a little bit high."

"The main problem for 3PAR right now is cost."

"I want artificial intelligence. I don't want anybody from my team to touch it anymore. I want the AI to do everything."

"The solution could improve by being more secure."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ cons

"Primera should be more user-friendly."

"We've encountered issues in the past where maintaining a read-only state is essential to prevent data encryption when VPN access is impacted."

"On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities."

"Only HPE can manage the product."

"One of the drawbacks of the model we purchased is that it is not running NVMe drives. Even though they say that it is NVMe-ready, it is still on the SSD drives. The model that we purchased has only eight hard drives, and only the ones on the top could work on NVMe. The rest of them are still on the SSD. Its competitors, such as EMC and Pure Storage, are moving or have already moved to NVMe. HPE should improve this solution for NVMe. HPE should also improve IOs in this solution. IOs in HPE are weaker than Hitachi and Pure Storage."

"HPE Primera is not good enough as a storage solution as it does not provide a good NAS storage."

"They could work to make scalability easier."

"We have not had a good experience with support from HPE Primera. They can improve."

More HPE Primera cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

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

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"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."

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Our licensing cost are $32,000 annually."

"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten. It is expensive."

"The SSD is a little bit expensive."

"As a school, we always have low budgets. We are a nonprofit organization. We do not have too much budget, so we care about prices, discounts, and especially about the product quality. The last 16 years, we have been an HPE customer. We are very much happy with HPE products."

"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."

"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."

"I have to renew support in October for the existing solution. That will cost me roughly $50,000 this year, which in the grand scheme of things, $50,000 is not that much compared to paying $850,000. However, it will be the last year that I'll be able to get direct support from HPE. Therefore, product has to be replaced in 2020."

"Performance is at least two times, if not three times, what we had previously."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ pricing and cost advice

"It is basically in the mid-range of the price. It is not cheaper than Hitachi, but it is cheaper than Pure Storage. There are no additional costs. Everything was taken care of in the price."

"The solution is quite cost-effective."

"It’s a reasonable choice. When compared to other options, we've found it to be accessible and within our means."

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

"The price of the solution should be cheaper."

"I believe HPE Primera and Pure Storage are similar in price."

"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."

"The price of this solution is good for medium-sized and large businesses."

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.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Educational Organization

41%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

10%

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?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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?

It is expensive, however, when we compare it to the features provided by HPE, the price-to-performance ratio is very ...

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?

I cannot recall the exact figures for pricing from memory, but it seems to be an acceptable and reasonable price.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 28% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 21% of the time

HPE MSA vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 6% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 4% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 37% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

June 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ

July 2025

Download HPE 3PAR StoreServ product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

July 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

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.

Pure Storage

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.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

July 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: July 2025.

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