HPE 3PAR StoreServ Reviews

Its ease of administration and reliability are the most valuable features.

It allowed us to put storage in remote facilities without purchasing a complete SAN solution.

There is a need for just cleaning up the administration page a little more and making it a little faster. We'd like to see a little more preemptive alerts for the usage and spikes.

Stability has been great, we haven't had any issues with it. The normal firmware patches come out to keep it up to date.

Scalability has been great. As we have needed to add storage, its just a matter of adding the disk and then, adding them to the bulk.

For the 3PAR the technical support has been great. They've been able to help us with any issues that we've had.

This was a net new solution for our remote facilities so we had nothing in place. This was something that we purchased and built out ourselves.

I was involved in the initial setup and it was very straightforward, specifically for the way that we wanted to configure it. It was the ease of administration, setting up the pool, connecting it to the chassis and then, zoning it to our brocade fabric that made the setup straightforward.

We looked at Dell, EMC and Pure Storage. However, HPE was the only one that provided the flat SAN solution that we wanted for those remote locations.

The important factor while selecting a vendor is the range of products for the solution in terms of the issue that I'm trying to fill. Also, how the vendors support their products and the price are other crucial factors that we look at before selecting a vendor.

Make sure you're looking at everything that's out there and that 3PAR has come a long way.

The performance and the support are pretty good.

Performance. We used to be with NetApp. The overall performance is much better with this solution.

Maybe they could have better alerting. We've had an issue where we had a flapping network link, and it didn't tell us that was happening. We only saw symptoms of the issue. I'd like to see better reporting for those types of issues. Even though the support is better than NetApp was, there are still some improvements they could make in their support.

The stability is very good.

The scalability is good.

I have used technical support and it usually is good. Their support is very hands-on compared to NetApp. Sometimes we have issues where they, just like any other vendor, point fingers at either networking or the hardware. We've encountered that with them, as well. Overall, support was good.

The old system was outdated. We were having performance issues with it and the support wasn't great. It was just time to shop for a new the solution. When selecting a vendor, I look for support, performance, and customization.

I was involved in the setup and it was straightforward.

Our shortlist included Nimble and 3PAR. One reason we changed was because we have local support.

I still think it is the best solution out there. HPE will help support issues or even upgrades.

I think the biggest thing about it is it supports mixed workloads. Instead of having to have different arrays or anything to support different workloads, you can actually support them all within 3PAR and you can, which I think is one of the key things. The other thing is it's virtualized and the performance on it is good.

I do a lot of research when I'm trying to find an answer to something, and I want the documentation to be clear. Tell me what's supported. Case and point, we just announced Direct Connect with 3PAR 8000, which we didn't have before. If you look at SPOCK, the information there was not clear and it looked like we actually had a big debate going. The support on it is very limited for Direct Connect, and it just wasn't clear. The feedback got sent and I think they cleaned it up, but I haven't checked.

If you have a bunch of mixed workloads and you have an environment, it'll support most customers' solutions. You can get a lot more storage in a smaller footprint, so for your data center, power cooling, and OPEX, it's a good solution.

• The ease of scaling.
• It's ability to provide different endpoints with different amounts of scalable storage.
• The way that it integrates with different HPE systems, such as the CLX, which is a cluster extensions package.
• The ability to migrate workloads from one data center to another.

The greatest benefit is its uptime. Also, performance and flexibility are very good. It runs both virtual workloads, as well as, native presentation workloads for both Windows and Unix environments. That's the main benefit. One of the other benefits is the way that it does consolidation and deduplication inline with the flash arrays.

We rely on WORM, so some sort of WORM feature would be good. We have to use other platforms for that. It would be nice to have that on the table right here.

We've had no issues with stability. All failures have been handled seamlessly within the platform. We've had controllers fail and they haven't impacted performance or stability at all. All very good.

Scaling is really easy. We can do online scale-ups adding more capacity and adding controllers without impact to the serviceability of the system. It’s all very good.

Technical support's been very good. The dedicated help desk for the 3PAR platform has always been very good. We’ve used them for troubleshooting where certain things don't happen the way that you'd expect them to. Sometimes this is our perception of what we feel we should do and not necessarily a shortcoming of the platform. It's just something we'd expect them to do.

We were using a legacy EVA system. It was just a natural choice. We needed to maintain the CLX packages that were also available for the EVAs. So when we wanted to refresh, it was the natural solution because it supported that and it was more up-to-date technology.

I was involved in the scoping of the solution. We were able to consolidate down from some of the old arrays very easily. In terms of implementation, I can only defer to the amount of time that it took, because it only took a couple days after the issue.

We were looking at NetApp and EMC.

When picking a vendor, the ability to execute on time and deliver on time is most important.

It's reliable and it's fast.

They are constantly moving and will address an issue instantaneously. If somebody has an issue, HPE is very responsive because the 3PAR is one of the flagship products. I haven’t had any issues and they’re very on top of making sure that we follow through with code upgrades.

The 3PAR is very reliable. Most of our performance complaints went away after we put the 3PARs in. We also went from a 4 GB to 16 GB fibre channel, so it’s simple to manage and easily serviceable by our technicians.

We have had no issues with our 3PARs. We like them a lot.

HPE support is very good. I've never had an issue with it. HPE stands behind their product so they work hard to fix issues.

To pick a solution, we generally create a matrix and then fill in what we want out of the product. We pump in vendors and choose whoever meets the targets that we set. I would also advise that users follow best practices with the 3PAR.

The reporting features on the 3PAR are one of the most valuable features in a flexible and intuitive web-based tool.

Reporting has always been a challenge for our company. Add-on tools for reporting purposes are often expensive and require additional configuration. The 3PAR build in reporting features were the answer to all our reporting woes. We are now able to report as often as we would like, including automated report generating.

Storage migration features. Comparing the 3PAR to IBM’s SVC, storage migration could be much easier to perform if there are lessons to be learned from IBM’s brilliant product.

I have used this product for the past 2-3 years at various clients including various models of the 3PAR.

No issues encountered. An HP 3PAR business partner performs the implementation with 24x7 support from HP.

No issues encountered. The product performs as advertised.

One of the key features of the HP 3PAR storage array is the ability to scale and the ease by which this can be achieved.

Customer service would get a solid 9. 24x7 support is available however this might vary depending on geographic location. Best to check support with the local HP offices or local business partner.

Customer support would be a perfect 10. The technical support staff are VERY knowledgeable and another key feature would be the call-home feature which comes with a 3PAR.

Yes. The cost of scaling up was far too high. When compared with the 3PAR, there has been huge cost savings which resulted in the ROI being achieved.

The initial setup was straightforward. HP’s business partner assisted with the installation and were able to get the 3PAR up and running in very short timelines.

The vendor team (business partner) would get a perfect 10. Their expertise showcased their commitment to brilliant customer service.

We considered an EMC VNX as well as an IBM XIV.

The product is definitely worth considering. As mentioned before, onsite support might be limited due to geographic location (only if you live in a very remote part of the planet) but generally the product satisfies most if not all business requirements. We are hoping to implement Flash storage. Flash storage is becoming more cost effective and the performance benefits are well documented when using flash storage.

This solution helps to store data for high-loaded and high-performing systems like business communications systems and telecommunications.

It fetches quick responses in milliseconds which can be within 40-50 milliseconds.

The tool has low storage and low performance. This can be solved by adding more disco to the solution. The product’s pricing is also suited for enterprise businesses rather than smaller ones.I would like to see better performance, UI, and compatibility with other products in future releases.

I have been working with the solution for ten years.

The solution’s tech support is good. You will get a dedicated account manager.

The solution is easy to deploy.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 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.

It's for storage, provisioning to our R&D teams. The developers provision the storage and test their products. The storage is critical for our development.

Right now we are looking at automation. Based on my conversation with 3PAR, they are using Ansible to automate the provisioning, so that simplifies the day-to-day operations.

• VVols are important for us
• Thin Provisioning
• Deduplication

We would like to see automation. We are primarily looking at provisioning and deprovisioning the storage, based on the customer requirements.

The stability is good, we really like the stability and uptime.

We have multiple storage arrays, we have yet to expand the existing storage.

We use technical support for firmware updates and any other application issues. The technical support is good. 

The decision to find a solution is based on internal requirements. We need storage capacity. Currently, we have, let's say, two petabytes. When we needed more storage then we'll think about expanding the existing storage or buying a brand new system.

The important criterion for us when looking at vendors is performance. We recently evaluated all-flash-based arrays and the hybrid model, and how they handle I/O throughput. Those are the key areas.

We went with 3PAR because it is easy to use and we are very familiar with firmware which is easy to manage. Creating the internal groups and other areas is very easy for us.

The initial setup was straightforward; configured the management interface and it was ready to use. After the physical deployment - you need to connect the power and network - it should not take more than one day, even less than one day.

We are using the same area for multiple product groups and multiple setups. It's a shared environment, so we see a lot of benefits with that model.

We looked at NetApp, Hitachi.

I would recommend 3PAR or Nimble. Nimble is all-flash arrays, if you have the budget. Otherwise, we favor 3PAR, the 8000 and 10000 series.

I rate 3PAR at nine out of 10 because of the provisioning, the interface; and now there is InfoSight. We are planning to integrate all our arrays. I see that as valuable.