HPE StoreOnce Reviews

Daily onsite backup, rapid data restore and reliable off site disaster recovery. HP deduplication technology can reduce the amount of backup data you need to store by up to 95 per cent and can deliver backup speeds of up to 100TB/hr.

• It’s less mechanical so it’s writing to hard drives and we’ve had no problems with it whatsoever during the year we’ve been using it. It’s saved us so much time as well because we don’t have to troubleshoot the migrations every day. We know that those migrations are going to happen and that’s taken a weight off a lot of peoples’ minds, particularly those running our out of hours services.
• We were creating so much data that even with two huge libraries and over 100 tapes, it only had the capacity to keep backups for three weeks. With deduplication on the virtual tape library it’s now achieving a compression ratio of 16:1 which means it can keep the backups for six months.
• Deduplication also reduces the number of disks required which reduces space, energy and cooling costs.
• Since the staged back-up happens in the background there is no impact on the network so back-up times are not an issue. However, even with the added work of deduplication, StoreOnce is delivering a transfer rate of up to 7GB/min.

Since the staged back-up happens in the background there is no impact on the network.

Came with two additional enclosures to put the drives in and you can add another one. We ordered the additional enclosure, it arrived, we racked it up, connected it into the VTL and ran a command to say ‘recognise this enclosure - expand to this enclosure’ and it just did it. You don’t lose anything because the data that is on the existing enclosures just spreads out across the new enclosure.

HP offered as much or as little support as we required so we did the implementation ourselves. It was checked over by an HP engineer and signed off in two weeks. HP provides support with a nine to five next business day callout. HP comes to visit us and we have conference calls, presentations and demonstrations. That is the kind of interaction we’re getting.

HP provided a Webinar overview of the virtual tape library, gave us access to HP Labs and also sent in two technical specialists to talk through the product, demonstrate it and answer all our questions. However, what swung the deal for us was that we were able to have the kit on loan for up to three months. If you don’t like it HP come and remove the kit. If you do like it you just pay for it and keep it. That was brilliant because I didn’t want to go through the process of buying something and then find it didn’t operate in the way we wanted or was incompatible with certain backup software.

Our storage infrastructure was founded on an HP StorageWorks EVA 4400 disk array and when demand increased, a further EVA 6550 array was added.

It integrates very well with our backup software. Creating a new VTL is very easy. You just go into the system and create the new library saying what kind of emulation you want, how many drives and how many tape cartridges and it creates it. It has a whole range of emulation types and most backup software will support one of the emulations that StoreOnce will use.

We did the implementation ourselves.

We have not so far computed the amount of money saved but efficiency and service standards have certainly increased. Previously, if someone lost a file it could take 10 minutes to locate and load the appropriate tape. Now, the restore time is around five seconds.

Our primary use case of this solution is for deduplication of the backup. We have a professional partnership with HPE and I'm a technical consultant. 

I am already well-versed with the solution and configuration of the product - it's been simplified over time which is great. I find the deduplication feature the most valuable. 

I'd like to see the cloud integration simplified. It would also be good if they could reduce the cost of the product. 

I've been using this solution for the past 10 years. 

It's a stable solution. 

The solution is scalable. 

The technical support of HPE is very, very, very good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Everybody would like the cost to be minimized.

I would highly recommend this product. 

I rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

The primary use case of this solution is for backing up data in the production process.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the ability to browse and get upgrades from the webpage. I can just go browse, then upgrade and update the firmware package. I manage StoreOnce from the OneView, which is an added advantage. The view of the portal is very good now.

From a centralized system, I can manage the interface, the backup policies, and the status of the database.

The new version is offering a cloud backup. It has keyboard data enclosed. It is also connected to the cloud storage.

In the next release, I would like to have a connection to the cloud.

The repository should have an extension to connect to the cloud and deposit the backups.

I would like to have it perform data deduplication on Azure through the WAN optimizer and some of the featured hardware.

This solution is stable to use. 

We have four people using this solution, three of them are system administrators and one is a solution architect.

Each license has its capacity. 

We are using it minimally, and we don't plan to increase our usage.

In terms of expanding, it depends on the type of license you have.

You have to purchase the license before you can add additional storage and space to expand.

We have not contacted technical support for the new version, but my experience with the previous versions, I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Overall I am satisfied with the technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward and simple.

The deployment was slow at first. The configurations process took several hours to complete.

The implementation was done through a consultant.

There are costs for additional storage and space.

This is a good product.

We are customers but we have partners for purchasing only.

I would recommend this product for its usage, the installation, the storage, and its management. It's easy to use compared to other products.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this as a backup solution in conjunction with Veeam Availability Suite.

This solution has allowed us to feel confident in that we have a mechanism for the full recovery of service, and not only our data.

The deduplication feature in this product is amazing.

This product would be improved with the inclusion of more features to security or WORM.

Our primary use case is disk backup and dedupe technologies.

This solution has improved our organization because it provides faster backup, more efficient storage, and operational continuity.

I have found the dedupe technology to be the most valuable feature. It results in more efficient storage utilization, cutting capital expenditure in half.

The product could be improved with better support for data protection.

I think the most valuable feature is the catalyst technology, which is in the StoreOnce appliance. It allows us to really hit our backup targets. It also allows us to make the most of the appliance and make the most of the technology as a whole.

It's really given us more confidence in our backup procedures and our DR. It's also really just been beneficial because it's kind of replaced a lot of older equipment and consolidated our back-up plan into one device and made things a lot more streamlined, runs a lot faster.

It's easier to manage because we were running a VTL device, a Virtual Tape Library, and it became a headache to manage tons of virtual tapes, whereas the StoreOnce is a one place one stop shop for back-up for stores, so that's really help me train other people on how to use the system and not have to go here, there, and yonder to figure out what you really need.

The biggest thing I think can be improved upon would be direct tape from the StoreOnce device so that we could actually ... We archive our backups on tape, so I feel like if we could somehow plug our tape drive directly into the StoreOnce device and set it up to where it would archive based on, if some kind of rules based engine or what have you, that would really be an improvement for us.

So far, we've been really impressed with it. We've had no downtime. We're coming off a D2D4312 system, and we had greater than 99.9 percent uptime on that device. We're very confident in the StoreOnce device, the uptime stability, everything is going to be just as good. We're a long-term HP customer, and we will probably remain so because it just works.

Scalability, we bought the device with one external expansion option, and I think it'll scale up to four. For the next five to seven years, it should scale out for all of our needs. It's very good, we're a mid-size enterprise, so it will more to meet our needs unless something disruptive happens.

It's very good, the questions I had were answered probably within, I think, maybe two to four hours, so it was a really good experience for that.

Due to a lot of retention, we've been having to retain a lot of things for compliance. We were running out of space on our older system, and we've been looking at the catalyst technology as an upgrade to the older system, but it was determined that we should just buy a new system and migrate forward because the old system was 5 or 6 years old, I think.

It was prior to HP bringing the catalyst technology, it came out on the 6,000 units down to the 4,000 level. It never had catalyst, it was a straight VTL backup to disk solution.

It was a pretty easy process. We basically stacked it racked it, plugged it in, went through the start-up guide. We did have some help from Avnet, they were kind of our partner, but we actually did it all in house, and they were kind of our Tech Support.

I looked a few EMC solutions and a couple other vendors, but basically the price point and feature set was not there for any other vendor. HP has earned a reputation in our organization for reliability and stability, and they get first pick on things due to that reputation because it just works. I actually have one server sitting in a closet from 1997 that's still running, so that's kind of a testament to how much we believe in HP.

Really to talk to a reseller. Our reseller that helped us out a lot was CDW, and we really talked to a reseller. If at all possible, to make that extra investment in the catalyst technology because it's really going to make their lives a whole lot simpler, whole lot easier, and I think that's the number 1 thing is look at the HP offerings, look at the catalyst offerings, and it's really going to simplify your life. Backups are kind of one of those things where you don't want to worry about it, you don't want to be up at night fiddling with it. I've probably gone from spending anywhere from maybe four to six hours a week tending backups to about 30 minutes a week. Just in my time, and our backup window has been cut by 75%, it's probably taken about 25% h time as before we implemented the catalyst technology.