HPE 3PAR StoreServ Reviews

I have been using 3PAR for three months. 

It's stable. Although we experienced malfunctions where a virus was running and it failed. 

We have around 1,000 users. 

Their support is very good. They are available in the case of a malfunction.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

I would rate 3PAR a nine out of ten. The stability is the most important.

We use this solution for mixed, unpredicted workloads.

This solution has allowed for massive performance acceleration of all workloads and massively increased availability (with peer persistence/transparent failover feature).

The most valuable features are:

• Peer Persistence, where storage failover is transparent to servers and there is no complex cluster-software integration.
  
• Thin Provisioning translates to reduced efforts in management on the server-side, where calculated growth of application data and LUNs can be provisioned on the first install.

The Unified Multiprotocol Access to the storage array needs to be improved.

All our data is in 3PAR. 

Our application worked well after we implemented the 3PAR solution.

• Stability
• Performance

These features are why we like this product.

The newer versions have some other characteristics that we are not using. We would like to use them and set them up in our current version.

It is reliable. The product is rich and very stable. Since we started, we have not had any problems.

Also, we have some upgrades that we have needed to start for a while. However, stability is a characteristic of the product.

We have not upgraded the size of the discs since we started.

Support is good. Every time that we contacted HPE, the problems were solved within a good time frame.

Previously, we had another solution where we have some problems. The application would be waiting for the IO. With 3PAR, everything was solved.

The solution, stability, and the performance work well for us.

HPE helped us set it up and the product worked well afterwards.

Normal file storage, SQL databases, Cache databases, and replications to our DR instance. The business needs it covers for us are not highly complex, only a little.

Performance is good. We've had some issues with doing virtual volume updates using Snapshots. We've had some issues with the dedupe garbage collection process as well. Supposedly those have been addressed with the latest OS update that we've yet to apply.

It has not changed the way we function a whole lot. We were on the P9500 Array before and it had similar capabilities, just different ways of doing it. Still, it has worked well for us.

We're using the Remote Copy functionality a lot, just for DR. That is one of the main features that we're highly dependent on and like to use.

Stability has been an issue going back to the dedupe issue.

I haven't had to do a whole lot of scalability with it. We're on a lease model, so we spec'ed it out for what we needed and haven't really had to scale it up at all, for the most part.

We had issues with HPE support, trying to work through that whole dedup issue; it was long and drawn out.

I'm not highly satisfied with support at this point, unfortunately. I am satisfied with our local reps. They have dug in their heels with us and have tried to help, to get a faster time to resolution, but it's the people we were dealing with through the phone and emails who really were not finding the resolution in a timely manner.

The switch was based on that fact that we're on a lease-refresh cycle. That is what really drives this kind of change, for our business.

Our main criteria in selecting a vendor include stability, that is a big one. What really drove us towards 3PAR was having just one vendor; having HPE as both our server and our storage versus HPE for server alone.

The initial setup was straight-forward. We came from the P9500, so it was more or less a rip and replace. It was involved with the project to replace our Blade infrastructure as well, but from start to finish, it probably took six months from design to implementation.

I see the value in investing in 3PAR. I think HPE, overall, is a good partner for us and we're happy. It's just the support that is the only issue that we've had with them. But overall, I'd say we're happy with HPE as a company.

We also evaluated Pure Storage but we wanted to stick with one vendor.

I would definitely recommend evaluating it. Depending on what you need for your business, it could be a good fit.

It has been rather stable, other than the couple of hiccups that we've had. Once we've gotten through those, it has been rock solid for us.

If you design it right and implement it right, it's headache free. Just keep it there and it does what it's suppose to do. Gives us peace of mind.

1. Reliability
2. The support channel

Nothing comes to mind. Most of these products usually come with more features than you need.

Whatever failures you have, there is no single point of failure. So, any failure, you get an alert, you have time, you plan the fix, the replacement, and so on. So your operations are intact.

In terms of scalability, I think it will meet our company's needs for the near future, but, later on, no. I don't think it will. It's not because it's not scalable, it's just that technology changes so much. Three or four years, you get something new.

The support channel, you open a ticket, they follow up, the replacement part comes to your doorstep in a maximum of three working days. And the price we paid for that, upfront, is very minimal. So, when you buy an HPE product, if you pay, say 10 or 15 percent more, you get the Care Pack for a total of five years. Other vendors, they charge much more for the same deliverables.

When looking to work with a vendor I would look for manageability features. Monitoring, central monitoring, alerts, mass deployment, functionality. If you have one server, two servers fine, but if you have 100, these pay back easily.

The most valuable features for us are the switches, which have either 24 or 56 ports, and their connection to the blade servers.

We've had faster internet connectivity and improved communications between various groups in our organization. And of course, this means that we are more efficient and can use resources more cost-effectively.

It's an expensive solution, so lowering the entry point for owning this solution would be a great improvement. Also, it should include an SSD for big data, something we could really use.

It deploys just without issues for us.

The stability is always very good.

We currently have 400 employees, and I believe it will scale for us.

10/10

It was very easy and straightforward to set up.

Data optimization, i.e., basically we have an adaptive and dynamic optimization about the clear structure of the data and this is the most valuable feature that comes with the HPE 3PAR solution.

This product is scalable, i.e., when you have a need for the performance and to grow online, without having any downtime. It's really optimized for any application.

It's pretty strong; actually, it is five nines (99.999 percent).

You can scale as per the demand and definitely, you can start with a one disk enclosure and then go up to nine to twelve disk enclosures, without having any performance issues.

I'm really impressed with the technical support, the team is very effective and they do resolve issues on time.

The setup was pretty straightforward.

I would definitely recommend it.

The reliability, scalability and support are the important criteria whilst selecting a vendor.

We've been with HPE for a long time and we'll stick with it.

The 3PAR is a way for us to manage our SAN fabric and have a way to do that in this very complex environment in which we operate. The 3PAR's been something we've relied upon for a number of years and continue to do so.

Our particular function works to coordinate with our capacity teams to define the requirements and then they come to us and say they need this amount of storage attached and so forth. From a technical standpoint, I'm not really well versed in that particularly. Internally in our company it's more about defining how we need the storage set up so that the teams that implement the storage necessary for applications meets the customer's expectation, or internal customer expectation.

I was trying to get into the StoreServe this morning; couldn't get into the basic hands-on lab. Technically, I can't address anything as far as features, support, or anything like that which might be helpful.

It's scalable just based on the physical placements of the hardware and the white space involved on the floor.

We have teams that work with the fabric directly and do all the fiber channel setup.

They give us the storage requirements and then we coordinate with the teams to do it. As far as competition I don't get involved.