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Director9019 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a non-profit with 51-200 employees
Real User
Improved our transaction data performance as well as overall capacity
Pros and Cons
  • "Resilience and reliability, unmatched. They take good care of us."
  • "I would like to see compatibility with NVMe."
  • "The setup was complex from the perspective of the employees having to go through five days of training. If they simplified the administrative process of maintaining the unit, that would go a long way."

What is our primary use case?

It serves as our centralized storage for three tiers of storage, and we have half a petabyte.

It performs very, very well.

How has it helped my organization?

We've had an overall improvement of performance in terms of actually doing transaction data, and we have a lot more capacity than we once had.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature for me is the support, three tiers of support. Storage is storage. The reality is, is it available and functional? Service and support are more important than capacity.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see compatibility with NVMe.

Buyer's Guide
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Resilience and reliability, unmatched. They take good care of us.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is far beyond what we'll ever need.

How are customer service and support?

The service and support are far better than any other service and support I've had. They are very proactive and very sensitive to any kind of disruption of functionality.

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

Our data center was compromised and I had to replace the entire data center. Our previous solution was HPE LeftHand.

The most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor are

  • cost
  • reliability
  • support.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was complex from the perspective of the employees having to go through five days of training. If they simplified the administrative process of maintaining the unit, that would go a long way.

What was our ROI?

We have seen value when it comes to ROI but I can't elaborate.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Nimble. We went with 3PAR because we got a special deal on pricing.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution an eight out of 10 because administrative functionality requires five days of training.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user427308 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Center Manager
Vendor
We have additional space in the enclosures for additional disks, so we can scale up without any downtime
Pros and Cons
  • "It is very stable. That is why we bought it.​"
  • "We have additional space in the enclosures for additional disks, so we can scale up without any downtime."
  • "I would like them to improve it so I can do firmware upgrades without downtime."

What is our primary use case?

Our use case is Oracle, VMware, and Citrix. Performance is good, but our main scope is to have high availability.

How has it helped my organization?

We have 24 hour production, so it is working.

What is most valuable?

High availability features are the most important for us.

What needs improvement?

Maybe someone can add the suite of features into the Synergy enclosures. That would be a great feature for us.

I would like them to improve it so I can do firmware upgrades without downtime.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. That is why we bought it.

Sometimes when we do firmware upgrades, then we must have downtime, but this is plant maintenance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is very good. We now use only 50% of controllers, so we can scale up from 50% to 100%, when we need it. We also have additional space in the enclosures for additional disks, so we can scale up without any downtime. 

How is customer service and technical support?

We have automatic technical support.

We have called technical support. They are helpful and do not give you the runaround.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have compared a lot of vendors and this was the best solution for us. We were running it when it was originally 3PAR and was not merged with HPE. 

We are very happy with the solution.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Support is very important for us and the reaction time when we have a problem.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
842,767 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user680214 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Server Admin at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Some of the valuable features are cost per disk storage, uptime, and ease of upgrade.

What is most valuable?

Cost per disk storage, uptime, and ease of upgrade.

How has it helped my organization?

It runs all the time. I've never had a problem with it. Upgrades have been flawless. We've had controllers die in the middle of the day, and it was no big deal. We've had shelves die in the middle of the day with no impact to our end users whatsoever.

What needs improvement?

I think they just released Flash Cache. It is the new SSD where you write all your caching information to flash disk, and then it writes it down to your nearline or your flash disk. We just bought all new flash cache for that purpose. So that was one of the features we were looking for.

I don't know that you could improve on the 3PAR very much, other than maybe the 3PAR management console. It's kind of an old school console, it's not web- based. It's a fat client that you have to install. It would be nice to have a web- based version that I could go anywhere to, versus having to go back to the 3PAR management console.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is top-notch.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability has been really good. We've constantly added shelves and disk space to it from the beginning. I think we started out with a 12 to 13 terabyte system, and now we're up to a 60 terabyte system. It has grown exponentially with us over the last few years.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have used tech support and it’s good. You get some people who are more knowledgeable than others, but for the most part, we've never had a problem. We've always gotten the answer that we needed to sort the problem out.

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

We knew that we needed a new solution. We had to move from some old EMC equipment. We had looked at what they had, their price offering versus what we could get at HPE for the same dollar, and this solution was exponentially better.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in the initial setup, and it was very straightforward. The HPE engineer came on site, sat down, showed us how to do things as he built and designed it. It was very good.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We had looked at Pure Storage , Hitachi , and a couple others. However, 3PAR gave us the best bang for the buck.

What other advice do I have?

Go with it. It's a beast of a storage system. We love ours.

When looking for a vendor, the most important thing is support.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user187731 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user187731Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor

Thanks for your review. The StoreServ Management Console (SSMC) is a web-based replacement for 3PAR Management Console. If you have any questions about it, please let me know.

it_user567990 - PeerSpot reviewer
Category Manager at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
The deduplication features and compression are helpful to me.

What is most valuable?

To me, the deduplication features and compression are really helpful. The all-flash integration is valuable. It's high-density storage, so the total cost of ownership of the solution is good for a company.

How has it helped my organization?

It's easy to manage. There is less need to manage the storage and we are more able to focus on the business.

What needs improvement?

Product improvement is a matter of the orientation of storage solutions in the market. Product improvement will follow the market trend and HPE will follow market trend about storage solutions.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's I think a five-9s (99.999%) solution, so it's very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It can be scaled to more than enough capacity. So, it's okay.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is useful and helpful.

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

We did use previous solutions, but it's a matter of quality and it's a matter of economics and that was the choice.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Dell EMC and HPE. We chose HPE because of the product portfolio that they keep alive and evaluate and improve. The one we chose includes all the features and capabilities that the company makes.

What other advice do I have?

I suggest to sometimes be disruptive in the choice of storage solution and don't always focus on the continuity. Sometimes discontinuity may help. When picking a vendor, reliability is important. Stability is important as well, but in the matter of looking at the future.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user567777 - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT System Engineer at Universitätsspital Zürich
Vendor
I can convert data from any storage type to any other storage type.

What is most valuable?

Flexibility, in regards to the different disk tiers in the 3PAR, is the most valuable feature.I can manually move data between the different tiers (NL, FC or SSD) or I can let AO do it for me. Thus I do not need 100% precise planning in advance.

How has it helped my organization?

I can play with it real time, all day. There's no need for a very dedicated planning for the future because I always can change it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability could be better. We have had it 3 years and we had three down times.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We scaled up in the past and we will scale up again next month. The last time the previous system engineer did this. I don't have experience with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

The quality of technical support was inconsistent. I did not always find that they dealt with our issues on time.

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

There were HPE EVAs before and they were at the end of their life.

When looking at vendors, the most important aspect is openness; that they really talk open and are not just marketing.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't involved in the initial setup.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I don't know if other vendors were evaluated. It was before my time. But, there are still better products. I would like to have an HPE XP7.

What other advice do I have?

Go and play. We have a lot of offices and backup sites so they can really get hands on. That's the benefit.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user567729 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Analyst at Turku PET Centre
Vendor
Scalable image storage tool that is easy to manage.

What is most valuable?

It's dynamic and easy to manage. It really meets our requirements.

How has it helped my organization?

We are in healthcare and we do a lot of imaging with huge amounts of data. If and when we need more storage space, extending 3PAR is easy. It has made everything more simple.

What needs improvement?

There aren’t many things to improve, but better monitoring would help us get a better look at everything we are doing. I would like to see more monitoring and graphs. It's not easy to pick up the correct numbers. Graphs would make it easier to measure performance. It could be that we don't know everything yet. There is a learning curve. I don't think we have seen the whole potential yet. Maybe I would give it a 10 rating soon.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have had the solution for approximately 5 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. There haven’t been any problems. If something goes wrong, HPE support helps us.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is easily 9 out of 10. It's really good.

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

We weren’t using a previous solution, but we did upgrade from HP EVA. Once we starting using this solution, there were some problems with the performance. We tried to see what the reason was. The system was slow. It has been fixed, but at the time, it was difficult to get an idea of where the problem was. This problem was resolved.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved with the installation, but I didn’t do too much. We had HP EVA and we upgraded to 3PAR. It went smoothly. There was a lot of old data that had to be moved to the new tool, and there were no problems at all.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Our shortlist of vendors including Fujitsu. We have something from them. However, I think it benefits us the most when we stick with one vendor, which is HPE. We try to stick with HPE and HPE tools.

What other advice do I have?

All of the products with every vendor have their strong points. The strong point for HPE was that we had used HPE before. We were able to transform from the old system (EVA) to 3PAR, and that was the main reason at that time we switched. Now that we've been using it, we know a lot more.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user370125 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Global Engineering Computing at Siemens
Real User
We can decide which portion of our data will be stored on SSD's and which will be stored on disc drives.

What is most valuable?

We use 3PAR to separate certain parts of our infrastructure. For example, we can decide which portion of our data will be stored on SSD's and which will be stored on disc drives. We have a flexible contract with HP in order to do this, and it's been a huge advantage for us.

How has it helped my organization?

It makes us more flexible because we can extend our storage size easily. But the most important advantage, again, is our flexible contract with HP. It's a technically wonderful product, but it's also wonderful because of the contract. We have no CapEx and no long-term investment on the contract because we're paying just a monthly rate.

What needs improvement?

We're satisfied with the existing solution, but we are still having discussions to improve something.

We're not missing anything in terms of hardware, but the firmware could be improved.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We've always deployed them without any issues.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution and there's global support from the entire HP worldwide organization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy to scale.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have a very close relationship with our account manager and they offer us technical support.

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

3PAR is less costly than our previous solution. We were able to migrate from EVA to 3PAR.

How was the initial setup?

Of course it's complex, but with HP's help it made the setup easier.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't evaluate other options because we've been with HP for many years now. We have 25 locations worldwide and we needed a global flash-storage solution. HP, also a global company, was the right fit.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're a global partner.
PeerSpot user
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

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

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