HPE Primera Reviews

We are using the solution for critical applications. It's used for multiple telecom services. 

The data protection is great.

The compression capabilities are quite useful. 

It is pretty easy to set up the product.

It is stable and reliable.

The support and warranty on the hardware is very good.

It is scalable.

Everything is up to par. We are happy with the product and do not need extra features. 

The pricing is very high. There are other products at much lower pricing.

I've used the solution for the past two years.

The solution is stable. I'd rate it nine out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution is scalable. It's up to 2 petabytes. Right now, we are using 300 to 400 terabytes. We have a lot of room. We also use a variety of other storage devices. We're able to handle all of the storage and what we use depends on the storage needs.

We have a few customers using the solution and how many users they have under them varies widely according to what is stored.  

The solution is under a good warranty. If we have any issues, we can contact them and get warranty support. If we have issues with the hardware, it would be covered under the warranty.

We only contact support if there is a hardware issue. They have been very good overall. 

We use various HP solutions as well. 

The initial setup is simple and straightforward. It is not complex.

The deployment process only takes an hour or two. The new servers came to the organization and we have a chain of management procedures in place and followed the policies to get everything up and running. 

We have 20 to 30 staff members handling any necessary maintenance. 

The OEM also provided support during setup. We had a standard engineer and the engineer came for setup. 

The solution is paid for at the time of procurement. There is no ongoing licensing. I can't speak to the exact pricing as I don't deal with that aspect.

I'd recommend the solution to other companies.

I'd rate it nine out of ten. We are happy with its capabilities. 

We are using HPE Primera for a virtual environment. My virtual machine is residing on it.

HPE Primera is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes.

The solution's compression ratio feature could be improved.

I am quite satisfied with the solution’s performance.

Currently, I don't find any difficulty expanding or scaling up the storage.

We have a tier-one support partner available to support HPE Primera storage, and we are satisfied with them.

Positive

The solution’s initial setup is very straightforward. It takes around four to five days to deploy the solution.

The solution is quite cost-effective. HPE Primera is about a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than Dell NVMe.

Almost all storage has the same capabilities. HPE Primera has password protection and hybrid storage, and we can connect it to the fiber. It is not difficult to integrate HPE Primera with other third-party tools.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We are HPE Primera’s customers. Our primary use case is to ensure quick and secure access to basic application data for online transactions.

HPE Primera provides me with system reliability and 100% data reliability. The storage is good and is consistently reliable and scalable, allowing me to use it whenever needed. The overall performance is great.

We would like to have more flash storage and its stability. This is an area of challenge for us.

I have been using this solution for four years.

The product is stable.

HPE Primera is good and scalable. We have 300 users for the solution, and two administrators manage it. The product also has online community engagement and patching management. It's a regular process.

The customer service and support is excellent.

We worked with something from Oracle, but it wasn't reliable. Therefore, we switched to HPE Primera.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took us two days to deploy it.

The solution’s pricing is affordable and worth the money.

It's a commendable solution, especially suitable for online transactions. It is reliable in meeting data requirements. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use HP Primera to store all data related to machine learning applications. Our machine learning team's critical research-related data is saved on the tool.

The most valuable feature of HP Primera is that you don't have to buy an additional product for application replication. This tool offers a feature for replication from the area, allowing you to configure the application with two data centers directly from the software.

Unlike Dell, where you would need to buy a separate RPA for the replication from IT tools ID, with HP Primera, there's no need to invest in new hardware for this purpose. 

We face challenges with false alarms, particularly daily alerts related to replication link breaks, indicating link code downtimes. However, upon checking, the link is consistently up. We have even carried out load testing. Despite escalating the issue to the highest level at HP, the response is attributed to a bug. We have also upgraded to the next version, yet the problem remains unresolved. These daily false alarms about application link breaks generate around five to six tickets. 

The other aspect is that the alerts occur at different times throughout the day. It becomes challenging to justify to senior management, who may lack the technical understanding to grasp the reasons behind the high ticket count.

We have been using the solution since 2020. 

It's a stable product. We haven't experienced any production downtime. The only challenges have been with bugs and additional software. Besides that, I haven't faced any latency issues or related concerns.

The tool is scalable. Our current capacity is now full. We have approximately 5000 users for the solution.

I'm not happy with the customer service and support. 

Neutral

I installed the device from scratch, and the process was straightforward. We just did the hardware racking and stacking, and I placed HPE Primera on the network. On switching on the network, it conducted self-monitoring. Soon, I assigned IPs to the controllers and configured them. The process was simple.

I implemented the solution independently.

The solution is cost-effective. I rate it an eight out of ten, with ten being excellent.

I recommend HPE Primera because it's one of HP's most stable product. 

HPE Primera was in use by our company for one of our customers when we were using only the SAN environment.

The most valuable features of the solution depend on the users' infrastructures. If the people use only the SAN environment and there are no replication, TR-069, or NAS requirements, then HPE will try to fit in for such requirements.

The features I like in HPE Primera are similar to the ones offered by NetApp. I prefer to use the features I like and want in NetApp and not in HPE 3PAR or Primera. If people use only the SAN environment in their company, they can go with the NetApp HPE 3PAR or Primera.

HPE Primera needs to improve its command-line interface so that all its users or administrators can work on CLI Command Modes. HPE needs to improve its NAS solutions because it doesn't offer any NAS products.

There are certain shortcomings in the technical support offered by HPE where improvements are required. There is a lot of lag or delay from the end of technical support. In general, HPE's support team should improve on response time as it can be better.

HPE Primera needs to offer NAS solutions because it doesn't offer them currently. The CLI Command Modes need to be improved.

I have been using HPE Primera for two to three years. My company has a partnership with HPE.

It is a stable solution, and I haven't seen any hardware failure in it.

It is a scalable solution as it allows its users to use its scalability options.

I rate the technical support a six out of ten.

Neutral

The product's initial setup phase was easy. If you speak about device management, it's a bit difficult, though not extremely complex. I rate the area concerning device management a six or seven out of ten. The device management is difficult because the CLI is a bit complicated, especially when compared to NetApp.

The product's installation and deployment may take three to five hours.

One person is enough to take care of the solution's deployment phase.

Multiple vendors are available in the market, so choosing a product depends on a user's requirements. Compared to HPE Primera, there are products under Dell EMC. The final decision to choose a product depends on the commercial perspective of the potential buyers in the market.

The solution's maintenance is not difficult.

Those who operate in a SAN environment can go with HPE Primera, especially if they don't have any requirements related to DR or NAS tools.

Considering the lack of features in the product, I rate the overall tool a six out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is for backend storage that provides instant access to client data.

The most valuable feature is the ability to provide the IOPS ratio which is required by a lot of our customers.

HPE offers a lot of storage solution options but they don't offer matrix storage which is available with some of their competitors like Dell and because of this, they can't meet some customer requirements.

I have been using the solution for one year.

The solution is stable most of the time but there are some cache issues at times.

The solution has limited scalability.

The initial response from technical support is quick within two to three hours but it can take some time between the initial call and the time the engineers align. Once the engineers are aligned they are very knowledgeable and resolve the issue quickly.

The initial setup is not straightforward. The deployment takes around two and a half to three days. On a scale of one to five for deployment, I give this solution a one.

We implement the solution for our clients.

The cost is $75,000 for a three-year contract. The cost is worth it to our clients as long as their requirements are met.

I give the solution a seven out of ten.

HPE Primera is great for rendering purposes and image processing. The solution provides high-performance computing.

20% of our clients use HPE Primera.

The solution has a good IOPS ratio for the cost but if you require a very high IOPS ratio I would recommend a commercial solution.

The next level up from HPE Primera is the HPE Alletra 5000 series.

Primera is a storage system that lets you mix and match All-Flash drives plus NVM drives. Most of the servers are hosted on Primera, so about 100 users are using this.

Primera's main advantage is its support for NVM drives and normal flash drives. It has some sort of AI analysis that automatically tells us how to optimize the performance.

The IOPS and throughput could be better. That's the only drawback compared to other vendors.

I've been using Primera for about six months.

Primera has been highly reliable so far, and HPE is offering a 100 percent availability.

You can add enclosures to Primera, so it's really scalable to any extent.

We used EMC Unity and HPE 3PAR in the past. 

Setting up Primera was straightforward and took about two days. Once it's set up, you need only one storage specialist to manage the solution. 

You need support from a vendor or at least an HP reseller.

I rate HPE Primera eight out of 10. I would recommend Primera if price is an issue. However, if you have the budget, you might consider a new HPE storage product called Alletra. That has better IOPS, and it's entirely NVM, which performs better, especially for database loads.

I used it purely from an OEM perspective. I used it as a solutions architect working on behalf of our customers. They've got several different versions of Primera. Specifically, it was a Primera 650. They've also got Nimble Storage, GreenLake.

The use case was basically application data that was made available for OLTP online transactions. It was designed to have quick access to typical legacy data for online systems and to have high availability.

They standardized on the HPE Primera so that they weren't running multiple different storage vendors' products. Because of the higher availability, they could set up the environment so that it could work with pretty much whatever data they had. HPE offers pay-as-you-go pricing that allowed them to put a sizable footprint in.

The high availability was most valuable because they come with what's called 100% data availability. With special terms, they license and guarantee 100% data availability. That was probably one of the key features or components that HPE was offering with that model.

Like most storage, we want to see flash become more and more stable. Like any flash that uses MLC or TLC techniques, over time, the more writes you have, the less usable the storage becomes. They try to plan for this and have a lot of extra space in the arrays, but over time, their performance does degrade. This is true for any flash storage.

It probably would be advantageous to make the storage solutions from HPE more inclusive with the add-on software. A lot of people say, "Well, we don't really need that extra software to do this or that." In most of the cases, if it's done right and they use it right, there is a value-add in these additional software tools that are optional.

Their support should be improved. Currently, it depends on who you get on the phone.

I have been using this solution for about a year and a half. I last used it about six months ago in my previous company.

It is very stable and rock solid. It has got the clause for 100% availability in it.

Its scalability is outstanding. You can add more chassis with more drives pretty easily. It scales out pretty large. I don't remember exactly how much it scales out to, but it's quite large.

With the online transaction system, they potentially had more than 1,000 users using the system. So, there were a lot of transactions. They've purchased it based on their project and sized it for three years. At the end of those three years, based upon the functionality, how well it is, and the technology, they might just simply purchase more storage for it to increase its size. Depending upon the dated growth of those applications, they might turn around and double its size in three years.

It is hit or miss. It depends on who you get on the phone. One day they're great on the phone, and the next day, you get somebody who is just not capable. I don't want to be too rough on them, but I'd give them a six out of 10.

They were using Dell, and they were just tired of the cost and the maintenance cost as well. The initial cost was good from Dell, but to re-up on maintenance after three years was not worth it. It was cheaper to buy new storage, and that was the main reason why they replaced it with HPE.

It was very simple and straightforward. It was very easy. We could configure it in an hour.

The implementation strategy was really about having a landing zone for new data. So, we just set it up and configured it for the appropriate block type data, and then they just started writing new data to it. It was pretty easy.

We sold it to them and then installed it for them as a service. It was basically a project that the customer was working on, and we basically won their favor as a value-added reseller (VAR), and then we basically deployed it for them.

The staff required for maintenance purposes was minimal. They were able to use their existing team to manage it.

Based upon what they were doing, a return on investment is hard to calculate when you're basing it on an OpEx model because it's an operating expense. It's a cost center. Because of the way it's being used, you're not making money with it. To get into true return on investment, you'd have to understand what exactly the data is providing, what the value is of that data, and how does it compare to what you were doing before? You would need more of a data scientist to do the analysis and understand what the return on investment really is.

Because it has high availability, the cost is above average. The cost depends upon the sizing, and every customer has a different size.

It is slightly above average in terms of cost compared to its competitors, but the value add was that they could know what their maintenance cost was going to be going forward. They knew what their renewal or expansion costs would be.

There are no additional costs for this model. There are additional software components that provide additional analytics that HPE offers. It really comes down to whether or not the customer decides to purchase those or not. You can use it out of the box with the base pricing, but if you want advanced analytics and insights, you'll need to purchase additional software.

It's an excellent solution. HPE definitely stands behind it. I would put it up against most of the storage arrays that are out there because it is enterprise-class.

I'd give it high marks. I would rate it an eight out of 10. I don't give anybody a perfect score. Eight is very good in my opinion. My rating is because of the high availability of the storage and the fact that it's based on very solid technology. It has been around for a long time, and it's backed by an excellent company. In other words, they're not going anywhere.