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it_user567951 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
The scalability and the support are the most valuable features.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the scalability and the support, because you need to keep the business running.

How has it helped my organization?

I am not sure that there are benefits over other solutions. It's just that we've always used HPE. I think it comes down again to be more about support and the scalability.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see a lot more monitoring and reporting out of the box.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable.

Buyer's Guide
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
830,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We've scaled it up quite a bit. It doesn’t have any problems.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is getting better.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used to use HPE EVA. We needed to switch because we couldn't expand anymore.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. I was one of the first customers to get their StoreServ 7400. It wasn't a good experience at all. The guy who set it up didn't really understand the technology that he was building. He didn't have build documents. The solution that I was initially sold wasn't correct so the workloads failed. It was a nightmare.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I looked at things like Tintri and another company that I forget the name of now. They didn't have the support model that I needed at the time.

What other advice do I have?

I think that it's a more mature product now, so you’ll probably have a better experience; but certainly do your homework on your actual workloads and what you need. We initially got a solution which died all the time because we were trying to get too much output.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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    it_user252639 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior Systems Engineer - Storage and Virtualization at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Vendor
    It's reliable and it's fast.
    Pros and Cons
    • "It's reliable and it's fast."

      Valuable Features

      It's reliable and it's fast.

      Room for Improvement

      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.

      Stability Issues

      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.

      Scalability Issues

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

      Customer Service and Technical Support

      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.

      Other Advice

      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.

      Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

      PeerSpot user
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        Buyer's Guide
        HPE 3PAR StoreServ
        January 2025
        Learn what your peers think about HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
        830,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.
        it_user469275 - PeerSpot reviewer
        Chief Digital Officer, Director at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
        Vendor
        We made the decision to purchase it with the view for growth, and we know we'll just plug another array or another stack pretty quickly.

        Valuable Features

        The implementation of it was amazing. It's easy and it's come a long way. The platform we had before was about four years old, so the technology's always going to be better. We didn't take that for granted. Overall I think that the ease of understanding what we needed and then procuring it and getting it, and then how quick it was to get it installed. It's just amazing.

        Improvements to My Organization

        It's really taken away a few headaches that we had. It's one of those things you know it's there until you get something that's built for what we want to do, it was matched to what our requirements were. It's provided huge turnaround for us.

        Room for Improvement

        I'd like it to be quicker.

        Stability Issues

        So far, we've had no issues.

        Scalability Issues

        We know it's there. We made the decision to purchase it with the view for growth, and we know we'll just plug another array or another stack pretty quickly.

        Customer Service and Technical Support

        One of my engineers might have called, but I haven't.

        Other Solutions Considered

        It really came down to relationships. At the time it wasn't just going from EMC, it was also going from Cisco to HPE Networking. We went through a pretty good process, where we talked about our needs and requirements, and also comfort levels of technology change. Some of my engineers were a little reluctant to move away from Cisco. But HPE came and sat down and just said "We'll do whatever it takes. What do you need? What are your concerns?" Just worked with us in real detail: able to understand what our concerns were, where we were going, and making sure that the engineers were made comfortable. But also making sure, which was the last part which comes across the line, was that the technology was what we needed, was enough for growth. Whereas Cisco was just a "here's a quote, sent it to us" which I think for me swung me over to HP. The commitment to the customer.

        Other Advice

        Think about the next 10 years, where are you heading. Personally, I say HPE's a pretty strong organization. They send the right messages, saying the right things. They seem like a very digital company which is all about customer, and that stuff matters to me, whereas some of the competitors, they don't have that mindset. Cisco definitely doesn't have that mindset. I really think long-term about. Sure, Cisco had a lot more features, but we didn't really need them. So, that made the decision easier. For me, when I think about HPE, think about longevity. You want to invest in technology, you're almost investing in the company.

        Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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          it_user362307 - PeerSpot reviewer
          Senior Server Engineer/Service Owner at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
          Real User
          I use the reports when I want to see performance, like how the discs are performing and how the AL is moving data to and from tiers.

          Valuable Features

          There are several valuable features, including the easy-to-use application and straightforward end-user tools. That's been helpful for me and there's nothing complicated to learn. The reporting and charting are also actually quite good. I use the reports when I want to see performance, like how the discs are performing and how the AL is moving data to and from tiers.

          Improvements to My Organization

          I think it leverages our investments of using this multi-tiered storage approach. We have SSDs, we have SAS, and we have inline SAS, so we're able to have a lot more teams running in one environment rather than having to build separate environments, and understand which applications need high performance and which don't need high performance. 3PAR does that thinking for us using it's adaptive optimization. It's been successful for us. The technology is sound, they used 3PAR quite heavily in our organization. It's been a quite good experience.

          Room for Improvement

          It needs better statistics and configuration. The system allows too much human input. It's automated enough, but it wants you to determine some of the settings. If you do them wrong, you can make a very good system perform badly. If you do it well, you can make an under-permissioned system perform very well. There should be more best practices that they suggest, not "okay, what do you want."

          I'd also like to see better real time performance rather than charts and graphs you've got to go in all the time. It'd be nice to have something running all the time, like a real tool from which you can actually see performance of what's actually happening rather than having to go in all the time and generate them. Real-time notifications, real-time performance statistics. They have those, but they're all command line and I can't keep the session running all day on some screen. You have to go in to get them and you can't really provide a thumb display for customers to see.

          Deployment Issues

          Deployments haven't been an issue.

          Stability Issues

          It's been quite stable. There's been things that have broken for us, like discs and some other ports, but the system still works.

          Scalability Issues

          It's been quite scalable. Since we bought this one in the summer, we've expanded twice, so it's quite scalable. Now it's over 200 terabytes and 176 discs, I think. The maximum is 250 on this one. It's not the biggest 3PAR, but it's quite powerful actually.

          Customer Service and Technical Support

          Technical support has been very good. The guys on the line are knowledgeable even at level one.

          Initial Setup

          The initial setup was straightforward. I don't think it was too complex. We've used other technology that's much more difficult to use. I haven't had 3PAR experience before, mostly Dell and Hitachi and some other EMC.

          Other Solutions Considered

          We evaluated Hitachi and we chose HP because of the price and ease-of-use.

          Other Advice

          Plan what the I/O needs are. You need better statistics before you buy something. Really plan to see what the loads are.

          Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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            it_user289656 - PeerSpot reviewer
            Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
            Vendor
            We were able to consolidate disparate storage environments into a single chassis with multiple connection types.

            What is most valuable?

            Disk-utilization tier-ing (3PAR Adaptive Optimization)

            How has it helped my organization?

            The organization was able to consolidate disparate storage environments into a single chassis with multiple connection types, utilize the different disk tiers across all software/hardware connected platforms, all the time providing the fastest disk to the most utilized portions of storage as determined by the controllers.

            What needs improvement?

            While there is direct module integration with different Hyper Visors on the market, the actual software of those integrations do leave some feature integration off requiring both management interfaces. The greater this integration becomes the easier to manage the environment it will be.

            For how long have I used the solution?

            I used it for three years.

            What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

            All the issues we encountered were due to human error.

            What do I think about the stability of the solution?

            All the issues we encountered were due to human error.

            What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

            All the issues we encountered were due to human error.

            How are customer service and technical support?

            HP technical support for 3PAR is excellent once you have navigated the call tree.

            Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

            I utilized HP Lefthand devices and EVA SAN’s (Models 5000 and 4400)

            How was the initial setup?

            The initial setup was complex in that requirements were not communicated well through the VAR and some parts needed to be sent back (PDU’s were of the wrong type) and the VAR assumed a Virtual Storage manager would be used, but a physical manager was both requested and required, which created an installation delay while the correct equipment was shipped.

            What about the implementation team?

            It was implemented through a vendor team, originally out-sourced by HP, then followed up by HP in-house technicians.

            What was our ROI?

            The implementation did not have an ROI to calculate as the products being migrated off of were end of life.

            Which other solutions did I evaluate?

            • Dell Compellant
            • EMC VMX
            Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

            PeerSpot user
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              it_user251226 - PeerSpot reviewer
              Senior Storage, Virtualization, and DR Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
              Vendor
              We have a lot of SQL, so IOPS was important to us. We also wanted tiering to move things in-between tiers easily.

              What is most valuable?

              The biggest pro is the overall performance. Provisioning is easy and fast. With NetApp, we needed to run scripts, which was a much slower process.

              In general, it’s been such a good fit for us, as it's fast, easy, and flexible.

              How has it helped my organization?

              Our biggest one was the overall performance. Our SQL servers are performing better now, and because it’s easy to provision, more team members can provision who weren’t comfortable doing so before hand.

              What do I think about the stability of the solution?

              It’s been very stable. In comparison to what we had before, it’s a 10/10 -- incredibly stable.

              What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

              It’s very scalable.

              How are customer service and technical support?

              Pretty good. Up there with a 10/10 so far. The few issues we had were resolved quickly.

              Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

              We were using NetApp. We were seeing overall poor performance.

              How was the initial setup?

              Straightforward. Wasn’t overly complex.

              Which other solutions did I evaluate?

              Major players, such as EMC. We felt HP was a better fit. We weighed it out and HP fit our needs better than EMC.

              What other advice do I have?

              We were looking mainly for IOPS. We have a lot of SQL, so IOPS was important to us. We also wanted tiering to move things in-between tiers easily.

              Come to the shows and get demos. Get your hands on it.

              Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

              PeerSpot user
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                Glad to hear HP 3PAR was such a great fit for you. For anyone that wants to dive deeper, here's a link to many, many 3PAR articles on my blog: hpstorage.me

                it_user252639 - PeerSpot reviewer
                Senior Systems Engineer - Storage and Virtualization at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
                Vendor
                We value this solution for its performance and manageability.

                What is most valuable?

                Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor for Flash Storage is partnership. Additionally, we value this solution for its performance and manageability.

                How has it helped my organization?

                During the migration process, we have had to troubleshoot less than in the past.

                What do I think about the stability of the solution?

                The stability is fine. We put disks in the system a couple of weeks ago, which went off without a hitch.

                What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

                We haven’t had any issues with scalability

                How are customer service and technical support?

                Customer Service:

                We haven’t had any issues. We wanted white-glove treatment and that’s what we got.

                Technical Support:

                We haven’t had any issues. We wanted white-glove treatment and that’s what we got.

                Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

                We ran on NetApp and had maintenance, performance, and troubleshooting issues.

                How was the initial setup?

                The initial setup of 3PAR was straightforward.

                Which other solutions did I evaluate?

                We also looked at BMC.

                What other advice do I have?

                The solution is great and I haven’t had an issue.

                Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

                PeerSpot user
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                  Thanks for taking the time to do the review. For anyone that wants to dive deeper, here's a link to many HP 3PAR articles on my blog: hpstorage.me

                  PeerSpot user
                  Senior System Administrator at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
                  Vendor
                  It has common provisioning groups which allowed us to create multiple RAIDs on the same disks.

                  What is most valuable?

                  3PAR has CPG (common provisioning groups) which allowed us to create multiple RAIDs on the same disks, move LUNS between CPGs and between RAID arrays. No other storage had this capability.

                  How has it helped my organization?

                  It gave me flexibility in moving things around, for example, I could move the production LUN and test LUNs from RAID 5 to RAID 6 in order to have more redundancy disk failures.

                  For how long have I used the solution?

                  I used it for six months, but am now at a company that is not using it.

                  What do I think about the stability of the solution?

                  It's very stable, and very fast. Creating virtual disks took literally one minute for a 100GB VM disk.

                  What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

                  No issues encountered.

                  How are customer service and technical support?

                  Customer Service:

                  HP was very helpful all the way through.

                  Technical Support:

                  10/10.

                  Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

                  We used a NetApp N6040n, and we switched in order to have more flexibility on our storage array as CPG moved LUNs between different RAID arrays.

                  How was the initial setup?

                  It's very straightforward to configure. You need to connect the service processor to the storage array and then finish the configuration settings.

                  What about the implementation team?

                  HP technicians did the initial deployment and I did the initial configuration. Even without any training I was able to the update firmware to v3.1.3, perform the software configuration, configure the ILO and service processor.

                  Which other solutions did I evaluate?

                  We also looked at EMC but 3PAR was the cheaper solution, and it was more flexible.

                  What other advice do I have?

                  It integrates very well with Windows 2012 as well as VMware.

                  Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

                  PeerSpot user
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                    Thanks for the review Dalibor. We just need to get you a 3PAR at your new company! For those that want to learn more about HP 3PAR, here's a link to the hp.com product page: hpstorage.me And if you want a more technical view, here's a link to 3PAR articles on my blog: bit.ly

                    Buyer's Guide
                    Download our free HPE 3PAR StoreServ Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
                    Updated: January 2025
                    Buyer's Guide
                    Download our free HPE 3PAR StoreServ Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
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