HPE 3PAR StoreServ Reviews

It is incredibly easy to manage. We’re getting the performance that we need, and that’s what we need storage to be. We plug it in and it works, and everybody forgets about it, which is what we need. We’re using 3 different RAIDS, and it’s working just fine.

It’s not as complex as EMC, so whenever there’s requirements for allocating storage, it’s very easy to do. The turnaround only takes 48 hours, whereas with EMC it was taking three days to a week to allocate that storage.

I'd like to see the system reporter improve. With the reporting feature, I’d like a little more versatility in how I get my reports. The 3PAR just runs and nobody complains, but I’d like to see what the warnings the reporting gives me actually means. I would like that feature to be enhanced more to get rid of more false positives errors. Also, the drive replacement on the 10800 needs improvement. It’s a magazine that has four drives, and to replace one drive, I wish they would not spin down all of the drives just to replace one. It makes me a bit nervous when they do that to replace a failed drive.

Very stable and performance is great.

We haven’t really scaled. We have a nice sized array right now, as we’ve just started the migration process. But we have the ability to scale if we need it. We have 25 HP 3PAR devices right now, and will get 25 more. We also have 50 EMCs that we’ve been trying to migrate over from.

It’s been okay. With me being a 3PAR person, my struggle with HP is that when I know more about the product they still take me to the level one person, which wastes my time.

It was before my time, but they wanted to diversify from EMC. We are slowly migrating entirely to HP.

Very straightforward. It plays with our Oracle products very well too, which we like.

Just EMC, who were already in place.

I think that the most important criteria when selecting a vendor is the business need and the reliability to make my job easier. I need it to be fast and efficient and be able to get graphs and reports from it. Definitely look at 3PAR as it’s a great piece of hardware.

1. Replication between sites
2. Migration
3. Dynamic Provisioning
4. Tearing
5. Manageability
6. Easy user interface

A real example is that before 3PAR, the nightly batch job would start at 7:30 PM and run until the next day in the afternoon, until around 2:00 PM.

Now with the 3PAR storage platform, the night batch job starts at the same time (7.30 PM) and finishes at 4.00 AM (instead of 2:00 PM the next day).

Firmware stability could be improved. Apart from that I can't think of anything else.

We have been using this solution for more than a year.

3PAR 10400 (Production) and 7400 (DR - location)

No issues with the deployment and we had very good support from the vendor. It's very easy to get it going.

A part of the firmware for the controller had a bug that caused some issues while doing the Dynamic tiering, however once we upgraded it was fixed.

No, there is plenty of room to grow.

On a scale from 1-10 I will give them a 9.

We had a quick turnaround time with one issue, and even a dedicated engineer working with us even though the issue was on the network side for the replication. Overall, we have very good support.

We had a XP24K and a EVA 6000 and we were experiencing challenges in replication and doing tiering. That was one of the main reasons we chose to switch.

It is very straight forward. Any person with basic storage knowledge can do the installation, with no specific training required.

We implemented through a vendor for the production site, PKA Technologies, and using what we learned, we have implemented the DR site in-house.

They are very helpful, and even after the implementation they have provided support for troubleshooting on the network issue.

According to the performance and scalability of the product, a rough calculation is that in three years we will be able to get an ROI.

Original cost was about $2 million. Day to day, it's just the cost of the power to run the hardware.

We evaluated Hitachi HUS VM, and EMC alongside 3PAR.

We are using the SSD but not flash. Even without that part, we are very satisfied with the performance.

It is reasonable and good product.

It's very similar to most of the other arrays, which are available there. 

The auto-tiering is something that we like. The provisioning is quite good. 

Very recently, we are able to do a lot of data center automation by being able to script some of the 3PAR actions for our private cloud. That's the other important aspect of using 3PAR.

The initial setup is simple.

The solution should have a smaller footprint. It's large compared to, say, something like Pure Storage, which is a lot smaller. 

3PAR is not as fast as Pure Storage. That's something that 3PAR needs to look at.

They need to look at the frequent breakdowns. It's not as lag-free as some of the other HPE Arrays, the enterprise flash arrays. That's something that HPE needs to look at.

The pricing could be lowered. 

In the future, I'd like to see it being controlled more from the cloud itself.  

The solution lacks reliability. This aspect has gone down in the last few years.

I've been working with the solution for many years now. It's been five or more at this point.

Reliability is one area that needs improvement. I cannot afford to have a 4-node storage array suddenly having 2-nodes reboot for no reason. This has never happened on Pure or even on Dell EMC Storage Arrays. However, I've seen that happen on 3PAR on multiple accounts. That's something that HPE needs to work on. They need to work on their codes and make them more reliable. It was reliable to start with, however, somewhere down in the last three or four years, they just slipped.

Technical support has always been quite good. I have no complaints there. They're pretty good, very professional. I'm satisfied with the level of service.

I've been using it for so many years that, for me, the implementation process is quite easy.

The costs can be lowered. They're a little more expensive, especially on the support side of it. Even with us being that kind of partner, and getting discounted prices, it's still a little expensive.

We use it in our company as well as our customer's companies.

We've used all different versions of 3PAR from the smaller arrays to the newest one, which we have, even their 2400, 2800 versions as well.

StoreServ is good storage, which needs to get implemented alongside other products to allow it to be utilized in the way it's supposed to be - especially in a private cloud environment. Some of the other storage arrays, which came after StoreServ didn't really fully feature. For example, Nimble. We thought Nimble would do that, however, that's not the case. Still, StoreServ is quite well-rounded as storage, which we can still work with on multiple traditional environments plus with the new environments - with cloud and DevOps running the show. 

I'd rate the solution at a six out of ten.

The main use for this solution is for storing large data in the backend. It is used in many companies, such as financial institutions. Unfortunately, it has come to the end of service life, companies are going to other solutions because there are cheaper products, it cost too much to maintain the 3PAR.

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 have been using HPE 3PAR StoreServ for approximately 10 years.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is scalable and we have approximately 10 customers using this solution.

The technical support is very good.

The time it takes for the installation depends on the number of enclosures. However, the average time is approximately six hours. The most time-consuming part is doing the scaling.

Most of the installation is done by the HPE because at the time of the installation there were not any engineers trained. We had approximately two engineers that were new to the product and we did the installation with the help of the HPE engineers remotely.

We have three engineers doing the maintenance of the solution.

If HPE reduced the price of 3PAR StoreServ they would be more attractive to mid-range companies.

At this time I would not recommend this solution because it is at the end of its service life.

I rate HPE 3PAR StoreServ a nine out of ten.

We use this solution for everything. We have server files and we have SQL's.

It's a flexible solution.

Currently, we are finishing the possible quotation to upgrade the 3PAR we have here in Portugal. 

It's a case of obsolescence. Since we have had the machine for four years we must remove the old one to put in the new one.

I would like to see more storage, a better interface, and to move from mechanical disks.

I have been using this solution for four years.

We have had the solution for four years and the software has been updated.

It's a stable solution.

This is a scalable product. We have approximately 1,000 users in our organization.

We are considering the possibility of a move to Primera or PowerMax.

We have contacted technical support and it's pretty good.

We purchased VMAX three years ago.

We also used the NetApp Series but decided to go with 3PAR.

The initial setup is straightforward with the help of the technicians from the company.

The deployment was completed in one week.

We had help from a consulting integration company for the deployment.

We also have a production team of 34 admins and engineers to deploy and maintain this solution.

We don't pay for any licensing fees.

We would recommend this solution to others.

It works well and we don't have any issues with it.

I would rate HPE 3PAR StoreServ a ten out of ten.

This solution provides flash storage for our servers. Our environment contains Linux operating systems, VMware, and some web servers.

The availability of the server has given us increased stability in our environment.

The mission-critical apps and processes that we use are our Oracle database, VMware, and some web services.

The All-flash positions us for growth because of its better performance, which means that our applications are faster.

This solution has improved throughput. It has helped when we deploy non-production servers.

This solution has great availability that works for us.

This solution should be easier to use.

The stability of this solution is good.

We have not yet tried to scale this solution.

I think that technical support is good. We have only had one report.

We implemented this solution when it was time to renew the servers. Prior to this, we used HP EVA, but it had reached end-of-life.

Although I don't recall the details of the initial setup, I think that it was a little complex. The people that normally work with storage had to ask for help.

We used a consultant to assist with our deployment.

The vendors that we evaluated were HPE and IBM.

The All-flash has better performance, which means that our applications are faster. Our performance has increased by twenty to thirty percent.

The biggest lesson that I learned from this solution is to try something before you reject it.

My advice for anybody considering this solution is to test all of the functions that the vendor tells you about. It is important to see how it works in order to see whether it suits your business.

This is a good solution, but it is not perfect.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The primary use case is production data. The mission-critical app that we run on this solution is SQL.

1. Performance that it gives me.
2. The speed of how we process data on the manufacturing floor.

• Ease of use
• The speed of the performance of the unit.

The solution should have better integration with legacy systems.

We would like memory-driven performance on the storage.

So far, the stability has been good. We have not had any outages.

In theory, the scalability is supposed to be fast, but we don't know until we try.

It does position our organization for growth by making things faster and easier.

The technical support is very good.

We were previously using NetApp.

We needed a new solution because:

1. Our old unit was very old.
2. We had requirements from our production.

The initial setup was complex, due to calculating the amount of performance that we needed for the floor.

We used Compucare for the deployment, which was rocky at the start. Now, it's very stable.

We have not seen ROI yet.

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

The solution has improved our throughput. We have less downtime.

We didn't have a shortlist. We worked directly with HPE.

The reasons for switching to HPE were:

1. The performance. 
2. The technology that HPE uses had more integration with our servers.

Never go with your first impression regarding 3PAR. They say that hybrid is the best thing anytime, but if you read the small print, it depends on how you use it, etc. So, we went with an all-flash for that reason. So, don't go with your first feeling. Investigate and try it out. Try to get a demo to make sure it works.

I like that the solution's availability gives me: 

• Ease of use
• Performance
• Good support from HPE.

We provide DoD services for military healthcare. The storage is used for healthcare delivery.

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.

All-flash also positions us for growth. We can look to simplify things while still maintaining the reliability and speed that we need to deliver quality healthcare.

In addition, it has increased our performance and it has improved our throughput. The latter improvement means that we're able to ensure that the users can get to their data as quickly as they need it, and that it responds to any queries that they have. It's able to meet their daily needs.

• The reliability - the solution's availability is really good
• The amount of storage that you can have on a system
• The speed

We've started to see an issue with the older models that we have. We've had issues where facilities would have unscheduled power outages or scheduled power outages and the 3PARs weren't able to come up successfully. We actually had an incident recently where it wiped data that we didn't anticipate would be wiped.

We will be having sidebar conversations with them later today, here at HPE Discover 2019, to talk about some of the possibilities that we're looking at.

Going forward, we're looking for bigger capacity and drives, which I know they're looking at. We want them to ensure the speed and reliability because keeping those systems up and running, 24/7, is important to us.

The stability and scalability of the solution are great. They're among the reasons that we selected this product.

Technical support has always been great. We have to be available 24/7, 365, and for what we've needed, they've always provided really great support.

We've had a long-standing working relationship with HPE. They're a trusted solution, so we've continued working with them.

We deployed it ourselves, although we had HPE come in and give us some guidance and then they were available by phone. We worked together but it was pretty easy to do. The HPE consultants have been great. Whenever we've needed assistance, they've been available and able to provide us with the assistance that we need.

The fact that it's able to provide the speed and the reliability that we need means fewer outages for the hospital. That means less back-filling the data so it's worth the money that they're spending.

We have looked at other vendors but a lot of them couldn't handle the capacity or the speed or the reliability that we needed.

It's a great product. Their support is great. We even have the ability to have loaner products provided to us as an option. We can have the products come inside and test and use them before we make our final decision. That helps with the analysis and recommendation process, so it's been a great partnership with HPE.

We haven't really had any significant issues. So other than that it's able to provide what we need and that the customer service is great, we haven't learned any big lessons from using it.

We don't use too much deduplication, but from what we've seen so far, it seems to execute what we need it to execute.

Once we get this issue that we've had recently resolved then I would say it's a ten out of ten. We haven't had any real issues with it.