HPE 3PAR StoreServ Reviews

We use 3PAR as a shared platform for services, applications, and databases.

For the past three years, all-flash has been the most innovative way of using storage, based on the 3PAR platform.

It is scalable.

I am hoping to see some snapshot functionalities: Oracle snapshots, snapshots for VMware, and hypervisor snapshots.

We have had some bad issues on stability. Also, the new feature sets, like deduplication and compression, are complex to work with. I hope when I view the roadmap that they will be less complex.

We have a bad track record on the 3PAR system. We also have some Virtual Fibre Channel (VFC) storage platforms. However, we had a bad start on 3PAR. It is going better now.

We are managing more than 50 3PAR arrays worldwide. In our test centers, we are managing 15 HP all-flash arrays. The use of it is to be able to scale the platform. This is the most flexible way and one of the requirements for use in our environment.

Our administrator uses the support every day. So far, I hear that it is working okay. The Call-Hall function is what we are putting our value on. This is also the primary reason for using their support.

We were using EMC VMAX, EMC VNX, and NetApp. We switched due to price.

HPE has always done the initial hardware setup of the solution. It is straightforward, because we have good local engineers.

The performance compared to other products. Over time having the product and using it for six years, the performance has been a tremendous and bought about positive things.

We always channel all our vendors whether it is HPE or some others. Price is one of the most important features, but functionalities, availability, and the scalability of the systems is also very important.

Do some benchmarks on it and compare the requirements for whoever will be installing this product.

We use a lot of different products by HPE, with 3PAR being one of the biggest. When we look at Synergy, we see how we can integrate. We have our 3PAR SAN. We see how we have our physical servers and how we can remove them and bring everything together. 3PAR will always be our back-end and it will always be our storage back-end.

If we can start leveraging some of this cool, new technology into how we deploy servers and how we give our DEV teams and our production teams exactly what they need in the shortest time possible, then that will define our business.

It is easy to use. The OS and the UI are straightforward. It's all manageable inside HPE OneView and it is attached to HPE Synergy. It's a unified experience. It really sucks going through 10 different systems and trying to fit all of them in. It takes too long and it is confusing. In fact, being unified is what it is all about. Being unified is the biggest win and the biggest draw.

We would like to see more Nimble integration, now that HPE owns Nimble. We would like to see how they come up with solutions to integrate Nimble storage and all-flash storage into our existing 3PAR traditional spinning disk. We would like to see what kinds of benefits that would give us. Perhaps we could add more cache.

It is extremely stable. We don't really have any problems. They release updates pretty frequently if there are any major issues. We've never suffered a catastrophic failure. It's been pretty enterprise grade, rock-solid for us.

The scalability is awesome. We just recently upgraded to a new system, and we now have the capacity to scale up. Essentially, the sky is the limit. We'll never get that big because our company is not that big. However, if we wanted to, we could easily scale.

We have used technical support. Usually, they're pretty good, but there's some room for improvement there. Typically, if we have a SevOne, Class A, super high-priority issue, production-down issue, they're pretty good. There are a lot of different cooks in that kitchen. There are a lot of different people and a lot of different, moving pieces. If they can get that integrated a little tighter, that would be even better. But overall, technical support is pretty good.

We were using BlueArc. It is not as resilient and not as robust. It is not as enterprise-grade as an actual HPE 3PAR system is.

When selecting a vendor, you want name recognition. You want to know that you're getting the best of breed. You want hardware services because it's not just about the hardware. The hardware can be awesome, but if you don't have the service to support it, manage it, and maintain it, then it's kind of pointless. HPE brings all of that together: Hardware, service, and support. It's all there.

The installation was actually pretty straightforward. Everything is well-documented, which is another big plus. HPE has always been there for us through each step.

We've looked at Dell, but we've always been an HPE shop. We don't really have any plans of changing that.

I say try it out. There are a lot of test drives of all their solutions. Look at the UI. See how well you can integrate with your existing systems and talk to the HPE guys. They are willing to show off all their technology and all their solutions.

We are very interested to see what HPE starts to offer in terms of integrated Nimble all-flash storage solutions. We’re also curious if HPE are going to introduce anything to augment an existing 3PAR system (ie; are they pluggable modules or expansion hardware that can take advantage of new Nimble-powered low latency, fast access flash storage?). And if they do have these types of solutions roadmapped, we are very interested in seeing what the average and peak theoretical transfer speed/access time improvements are!

It's probably the most cost-effective, value-for-money system for the mid-market.

Besides from being cost effective, it's got a low-cost disk, upon which you can load any of your imaging stuff. Then, there are also the higher-cost disks, and the SSDs, which are phenomenally fast. SSDs make our systems work significantly faster. I've used SSDs before when I was a customer. Previous to this job, I was the infrastructure executive for a much larger company and we invested quite heavily in HPE 3PAR.

In the next release, I think I would like to see lower-cost SSD features. I would prefer to spend a little bit less there so I can afford to actually move my entire 3PAR system into SSDs.

The stability is pretty good.

The scalability is very good.

We have used technical support. Sometimes we used HPE's technical support out of India and it is quite difficult to understand them. I think that HPE needs to look at that. Besides that, the technical support is relatively good.

Before this solution, we were in a situation where the disk capacity we had continued to grow. When I joined the company three years ago, each system had their own stuff so we invested in 3PAR. We were just using all internal disks. I've used one or two other disk systems, but I don’t recall the names. We also used HPE's EVA, which I don't think was necessarily the best environment. We also used their XP environment which was very good. EVA was not as fast as it should have been. I think it was too costly. When we chose this solution, we were looking for the most value for our money. We had a short list of other vendors, but I've been buying HPE since 1982, I think, so it didn't take long for me to think about HPE.

I don't do this sort of leg work, the keyboard stuff, because I'm an executive responsible for other matters. However, I have a technical background, so I know quite a lot about it. The feedback I received was that it went very well. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it.

I have heard of a solution called "Clear" or something like that. If you look at them, trolley-for-trolley, or pound for pound, I think that HPE 3PAR is probably the best system around.

The ability for data to be auto-tiered and the flash capabilities.

The ability for the PAR array to thin provision, effectively means that we can buy only what we need for the first year, and then plan and manage the data for future growth. What this means, is better value for money and long term cost savings.

Scalability, in the sense that it would be awesome if the product had the capability to not only scale spindles, but also processing power.

I've been using it for three years.

No major issues were encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered, but to reiterate, it would be nice to scale processing power as well.

It varies, sometimes they are a 9/10, and some days they can be 4/10.

It varies, sometimes they are a 9/10, and some days they can be 2/10.

We previously used an older HP model and switches, and we upgraded as it was a storage refresh.

It was straightforward – it was stood up pretty easily and management is simple enough.

We had team from HP implement is for us and they were easily 9/10.

We also looked at EMC and IBM array’s in the same class, but 3PAR was a better value for money with what they were able to offer.

This is a good, stable product, and management is pretty straightforward. For the price, it is a no brainer.

We use it for all kinds of needs, such as infrastructure needs, and application services. We are using the latest version of this solution.

Their support is the most valuable. The support that we are getting from HP Turkey is very good. 

This product is better than some of the other products in terms of reliability. It is very reliable.

We are using a built-in solution in 3PAR. We are using All-Flash Storage, and there are some difficulties with it. HPE has now developed a new tool system to support All-Flash, and that's why we are changing our investment.

They must increase its performance. I want unlimited support, which is very important for performance. I am not interested in spinning disks. HPE is developing new storage systems called Primera, but they must be developed more.

I have been using this solution for more than five years.

3PAR systems are stable. We don't have any problem, but in the past, we had a problem with the 3PAR disk. I don't remember the disk vendor, but it was about the disk. That's why we changed all disk parts, which was a bit of hard work for us. We didn't have any other problem other than the disk problem a few years ago.

It is easily scalable. It is easy to scale, but if you plan to increase it substantially, it can be a bit difficult.

I'm a service provider. We provide support for Unix servers for many companies and customers. Some companies have more than 1,000 3PAR users.

The support that we are getting from HP Turkey is very good.

We are using IBM Flash Storage. In Turkey, IBM has more support and more products for the flash systems, which is an advantage. Performance of the storage is also better. 

We are also using FUSE Storage, which is also All-Flash Storage. Their performance is also better than HPE 3PAR. HPE 3PAR doesn't support any images.

The initial setup was simple.

Our storage team deploys the HPE 3PAR system. Sometimes, we also need some support from the local HPE support team. Its maintenance is done by a vendor.

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

The most important things are availability, scalability, reliability, stability, and performance. We are service providers, and the customers want availability. You must focus on these things before buying storage. I advise going for All-Flash Storage to all people because spinning disks take too much space and electricity and provide less performance. That's why NVMe is better.

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

We use the 3PAR to host our SQL Database and Oracle Database. We also use it for VMware and vCenter.

We do not manage this product ourselves, so we are not familiar with all of the features that it has.

We had an issue a few months ago where we experienced a degradation in performance.

Every time you scale by adding more capacity, you need to pay for re-balancing services that cannot be performed in-house.

I would like to see an automatic re-balancing system or functionality for adaptive optimization.

We have been using HPE 3PAR StoreServ for almost five years.

This product is stable, aside from the performance problems we had.

We have added capacity to this solution between four and six times. Each time we did, we had to purchase services for re-balancing. It has to be done by a 3PAR engineer, rather than by our staff. It's a complex process. With some other products, you can just add a new disk to increase capacity, and you don't need to perform re-balancing.

There are three of us in the company who uses it.

For development, we have an IBM DS5000 storage system.

As it is for development, I cannot compare the two solutions. Our 3PAR is adapted for production.

The initial setup is complex because it needs a special engineer from HPE to take care of the setup and load balancing.

Our equipment is managed by a holding company. I request the load and capacity, and they configure it for me.

This is not an expensive product but every time you add capacity to it, you need to pay for re-balancing.

This is a product that I do not recommend because it is too difficult for people to manage, and it should also be a little bit cheaper.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

It's primarily used as our primary SAN, storage area network. We store all sorts of data and VMs on that particular set of disks. It's for local data center usage. We have three data centers now, one in Atlanta, one in Dallas, one in Provo. We aren't doing any site to site replication. It's really just localized and we're trying to get to a point where we are actually doing site to site replication for DR and things of that nature.

The performance is good. We enjoy it. We like it.

The ease of management is what changed. Where we had, in simple terms, about an hour's worth of work, it has minimized that to maybe one-tenth, or something to that effect. Instead of us having to do a lot of steps to ensure that our environment is where it needs to be from a storage perspective, because of the ease of management, the UI differences, it has allowed us to manage our environment.

• The intuitiveness of the SAN itself, a lot of the built-in logic and functionality
• The tiering that it uses to determine what type of disk is best for the various types of workloads
• The automation that is built in 

We used to have EMC and we have found that it's a lot easier to manage.

Stability is very good. No issues thus far.

We haven't really had to scale it yet. We got a pretty large footprint initially. I think we've added some SSDs, some nearline disk. But from that perspective, no issues, no complaints.

Most of what we have had to engage support on has been, "Hey, how do we do this?" or, "Hey, I see this, but I don't understand. What can I do?" We've had pretty good experiences so far.

We had a set of vendors come in and do proofs of concept to help us better understand what options and features were available. Based upon what we found with HPE and 3PAR - I wasn't actually a part of the initial assessment, this is all stuff that I heard when I came on board - it just was the best solution for us at the time.

My team was involved in the initial setup and I managed the team. We had three resources that were a part of the setup, so they were onsite with the engineers. They got a week or so of training each. That was pretty much all we were a part of during the initial setup.

It was probably complicated because most of our team were used to EMC and it's a different kind of mindset. Even today, there are a lot of things that we haven't leveraged because we simply don't have the expertise. Over time, though, as we've used the tool, we've become more comfortable with it.

I don't know if we've done enough analysis to gauge ROI yet.

As far as I know, we had three vendors on our short-list: HPE, EMC, and a third vendor I don't recall at the moment.

Definitely learn the features of the product, what it takes to actually administer and manage it, what type of resource load is also required. It's not necessarily a tool that enables anyone who says, "Hey, we bought a SAN, go take it over." It really takes someone who has an understanding of and background in the tool, maybe even a little background with HPE. Just make sure you fully understand what you're getting into.

I would rate it a nine out of 10. We've been fairly satisfied with the product, we haven't had any issues. It's definitely not something that you can easily jump into without that initial set of knowledge to help you understand how to use the tool. From our perspective, the way we went into it was backward. We bought and then learned, instead of learned and then bought. That has been a part of our hurdle but, overall, it has been a good product.

Virtual machine data storage. It's serving one specific business need.

It is performing as expected. It hasn't been fully exercised as we're still moving production onto it.

We are still transitioning to it.

We're utilizing the Peer Persistence. 

Also, we haven't had to fully embrace it yet, but the predictive analytics, where we're getting notifications prior to a failure - we've gotten some during our PoC and testing - has been helpful.

It has shown a lot of stability. We have a pretty rigorous QA process and there have been some minor issues and some things that we've had to work through, but nothing that has been unpredictable or unexplainable or just flat out faulty. It has been pretty reliable.

I'm not too familiar with the scalability, I haven't to expand on it yet. But, from what I understand, scaling it should be easier than with typical storage platforms. We did recently just add a shelf of disks, which didn't take too much effort. I think it definitely has good scalability, but I don't have too much hands-on with that yet.

Technical support has been pretty good. We always have to work hand in hand with our HPE support teams, we have to provide data and logging and feedback, etc. But typically they're pretty responsive. They dig into issues and but you have to work with them. You can't just throw a problem at them and expect them to fix it, you have to keep an open line of communication, give them the data they need, and work with them that way.

We were in a position where we could reinvent our wheel. We had an older, aging architecture and we needed to update. So, as much as it is a replacement and an upgrade from our existing equipment, it is also brand new. It's a complete transition from where we were to this. It's hard to look at it as a transition when there is that much stark difference. When we get over to it, there's going to be a clear benefit upgrading from what our legacy networks and servers are.

When evaluating a vendor our criteria include

• price
• customer service 
• quality of the technology 
• whether or not it can serve our needs.

I think once you know the system, the setup is pretty straightforward. Being somewhat unfamiliar with it going into it, it can appear complex. Once you understand the key concepts and the configuration points that 3PAR is using, I think it becomes easier.

We worked at it for at least two weeks, but we had other priorities than just setting it up. We were exploring, poking the box, so it wasn't just an out-of-the-box, get it set up process. The out-of-the-box, basic set up was about a day for rack and stack and then maybe another day or two - once we knew which configuration we needed on it - to have it fully implemented.

Clearly we see value. It is serving a specific purpose for our hardware solution. When our full solution is implemented, there is a clear return on investment, not just for the storage component but for our compute networking components that are part of the larger architecture picture that 3PAR fits into.

Our organization already had an established relationship with HPE so, in this particular case, we weren't in a position to shop this piece of the solution around. We stuck with HPE after making the other decisions.

It's a very good solution. It doesn't come without some of its own quirks. We had a few struggles to get certain things working and HPE worked with us through them. Not everything was well-defined in the HPE White Papers. It definitely required working with HPE engineering and the solutions architects to get through that. That being said, the promise of what 3PAR was supposed to do for us, we were able to achieve that.