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HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs IBM XIV comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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

HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
302
Ranking in other categories
NAS (6th), All-Flash Storage (9th)
IBM XIV
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 9.4%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM XIV is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Ajith Kandaramage - PeerSpot reviewer
Good value for money but issues with modular scaling
IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness I've been using IBM XIV for two and a half years. IBM XIV is stable. IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I benefit from the HPE Call Home feature. It tells me about any issue once I have it."
"Remote-copy provides high availability and disaster recovery for the connected clients."
"I must say the uninterrupted upgrades of 3PAR, the OS, and its RAID-type system are must-have features."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ is easy to use, fully featured and has a great graphical user interface."
"The new StoreServ Management Console (SSMC) tool is more user-friendly."
"It is very stable. That is why we bought it.​"
"If you can handle the IOPS, throughput is a natural byproduct. Usually, IOPS is where you are capped. HPE has done a great job in making sure that our IOP-intensive EMRs stay up and running. We have really good performance on them."
"3PAR is different from other storage solutions because it uses a chunklet when we initiate the storage. Every disk is submitted as a 1 GB chunklet. This chunklet can be RAID 1, 4, 5, or 6. This fabulous feature is very useful for me because I can distribute the RAID for any volume. 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. Other vendors take this volume as thick provisioning because of which the capacity is reached quickly. It doesn't happen in 3PAR because it detects zeros. It only writes the data, and it doesn't write zeros. There are two processors in 3PAR: the ASIC processor and the main processor. The ASIC processor detects zero writing and doesn't write it, which is a big feature in 3PAR."
"Very easy to produce reporting data (Snaps). Very easy and fast for provisioning devices and Remote mirroring."
"Hands down, this is the easiest storage platform on the market to manage."
"The performance and robustness of the systems are very good."
"Installation is amazingly easy."
"As it spreads, a chuck of 1MB across the board means using all available spindles on the backend."
"IBM XIV's most valuable features are NVME, especially when it comes to de-duplication, compression, and responsiveness."
 

Cons

"We would like to see dedupe and compression allowed on all drive types."
"Sometimes the required upgrades have been a little bit involved: "You have to do this before you do this," and I want them to explain to me why. It's more work than it should be."
"We had a minor error when we were configuring this system, which initially detracted from its overall stability."
"The management interface is not intuitive."
"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."
"Security is a mandatory feature because our customer needs to protect delicate information."
"The configuration and flexibility should improve."
"The only drawback on it is that tech support seems really busy. We get a critical notification when an important patch comes out, but sometimes it's a month before we can get this critical piece on because they just don't have time on their schedules to do it sooner."
"Until the drive is replaced, the pool_resizing is locked."
"This product was not a good fit for our organization as we have a ton of latency sensitive applications and XIV was not able to keep up with IO + latency demand."
"I would rather have a web GUI served directly from the unit, and a CLI accessible directly through SSH."
"The change form synchronous mirroring to asynchronous (and vice versa) without reconfiguration from scratch would be helpful."
"I encountered stability (performance) issues during enclosure or disk rebuild. Also some power supply issues due to malfunctions of ​circuits. Sometimes "internal" Snap sessions hang and consume pool capacity."
"IBM XIV's scalability is adequate for our requirements, but because it's modular, you can't scale to larger requirements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We had to go back and purchase iLO licenses and brocade switches for the flex fabric to have a complete solution."
"It's a good price."
"Making the decisions to buy it can be complex."
"Cost-wise, it is a little bit on the higher side, but it is an awesome product."
"The licensing cost for HPE 3PAR StoreServ is expensive."
"It's very reliable and it was cost competitive with other arrays at the time that we purchased it."
"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."
"No-license-required policy, unlike others where you need a license for everything. Just pay once and forget about licenses."
"Licensing is straightforward."
"We have a five-year total cost of ownership where we pay an initial amount and then annually for maintenance."
"If you are going to use the product behind an SVC, IBM will price the units lower, since you are likely not to use any of the advanced copy services."
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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
Educational Organization
86%
Computer Software Company
2%
Financial Services Firm
1%
Manufacturing Company
1%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
XIV
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Celero, NaviSite, Technische Universit_t Mªnchen, Netflix Inc., Muhr und Bender KG, Pelephone Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. IBM XIV and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.