HPE StoreVirtual Reviews

The network RAID is the key feature of the system which, with StoreVirtual, is a build-out of HP servers with software on it. The system creates volumes over multiple “servers”. With network RAID 10, you have two synchronous copies of your data. With network RAID 10+1, you’ve get three copies of the data, and with network RAID 10+2 there are four copies.

Of course, you invest a lot of space in redundancy, but you can chose by volume which network RAID to use. For lower performance volumes, you can even use network RAID five.

We’ve created two data centers. This allows us to keep working when there are power outages on one of the two sites. The data centers are about 150 meters apart in different buildings.

The way iSCSI sessions are handled could be improved. But if your system is designed right, this isn’t an issue. I’m quite curious to see the improvements in the next version because this already is a very mature and complete product.

I've been using it for five years. I spent four years setting it up, and one as an administrator.

The greatest problem for installation is choosing a place for the “Fail Over Manager” (FOM). This is a third system that allows the systems to avoid a split-brain scenario. It’s not a requirement, but when this is placed well, your system will fail over automatically from one site to the other and back.

This is a very reliable product. I’ve never known one of the dozen systems I’ve installed to fail.

The system is quite scalable, but extra storage means an extra box and, depending on your architecture, two boxes at once.

In Belgium, I’ve had difficulties getting the right engineer on site. Storage engineers see it as a server box, and server engineers are not always aware of the storage implications. Phone support is, however, very accessible and accurate.

I also used P2000, Dell EquaLogic and DataCore. P2000 is a lower-end product. EquaLogic didn’t have online replication and automated fail over at the time. DataCore is storage software, and I found it difficult to maintain due to the large hardware base they need to support.

The difficult part about the setup is the network part. You need to configure flow control, jumbo frames, LACP trunks, and, in some cases, spanning tree correctly. Once the network setup is correct, the configuration is very straight forward.

I was part of the vendor team.

We do the implementation of the solution.

Our customers are using it for their backup and file storage.

Catalyst handling.

The software is perfect.

Hardware and disk failures are happening frequently.

I have been using the solution for seven to eight years.

It is stable. I am not getting many calls about the product, only about disk failure.

We are working on single node only. That is a limited edition for this solution.

We have several customers. There are 50 to 70 users connected.

We use the technical support. 

Documentation is all available on the HPE site for all the products.

The initial setup is straightforward, not a complex procedure.

We always recommend this to our customers, but we only have one solution.

I would rate the solution as a seven (out of 10).

Primary iSCSI-based storage using P4000 series nodes for HPE lefthand.

VMware compute on BL465G7s within a P4000 series chassis

StoreVirtual has proved to be a highly available, very stable and robust solution. It allows compute and storage to operate separately, and has the ability to take SAN nodes out of production for maintenance with little effort and zero downtime.

The most valuable feature is Network RAID 10.

We use SAN datastore replication for DR, along with VMware SRM.

There is no next release. The product is coming to end-of-life in the next three years.

I have been using this solution for eight years.

Running a SAN without having to invest in additional expensive hardware so this means we have a cost saving. It also means that less support is needed as there is less hardware to maintain. Also, it has Adaptive Optimization which means it is using fast storage (SSD) only for active data.

In the past we didn’t have a shared storage solution in small offices; with StoreVirtual, we can benefit from the advantages of a SAN (vMotion, HA, DRS etc.) without investing big money.

Features like data deduplication would be great because in the end, this solution requires a lot of raw disk space because of the use of RAID5 on the hardware and RAID1 on the network.

We've been using it for six months. It's installed on a VMware vSphere instance (v12.6.00.01155.0) with two storages nodes that each have a 10TB license and a failover manager for quorum.

We had some stability issues in the beginning. They were easily resolved by dedicating a NIC for symmetric replication.

We haven't yet had to contact tech support.

It's very straightforward and the basic setup only took a couple of hours. The GUI is very user friendly and the documentation and white papers provided us all the required info.

We did it using an an in-house team. If you have already some storage knowledge, this install is very easy.

We also considered VMware VSAN because of its integration with the hypervisor/console. We decided to go for the HP solution because of the stability of the product as the OS, LeftHand, is already fairly old and well established, so HP have more experience there.

Before implementing it and using it you should read the best practice documents as well as white papers upfront.

• Multi-site SAN (near-real-time replication)
• Ability to assign Servers/LUNs to a physical/logical site for better access avoiding high-latency connections
• Space reclamation
• Thin/full provisioning
• Maintenance and support is easy to do.
• There are two 10GB ports present next to four GB ports, which makes it easy to upgrade the network .

Server provisioning and capacity expansion are much easier than before.

StoreVirtual should offer QoS per v-disk or ISCSi.

We've been using the 4500 for three years, and the 4730 for one year.

We had no deployment issues.

There were no issues with the stability.

We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.

9/10 From disk replacement to software support, the response from technical support is always excellent.

Initially, we used a HP entry level "SAN" HP P2000 G2. It was for our initial virtualization project.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward as HP did a good job providing excellent documentation and best practices.

We implemented it via an in-house service. Testing different workloads on your SAN is a good idea. This helps you to have a comparison point for later users. In case people encounter trouble in production, you can then easily compare performance with the different workloads.

Over a period of five years, we created 40-45 VMs. Previously, we had a physical server, storage, and backup solution, which was about $5,000 per server. We made a serious savings compared to the price of the SAN solution.

Enterprise data and health care. All our data was in a P4500 StoreVirtual, now it is gradually moving to a 4 Node VSA.

Data is stored in two different places, leveraging more security and availability. Therefore, network problems are having less affect on iSCSI. We also plan to build a Metro Cluster using VSA.

• Data replication (Network RAID 10) 
• Simplicity of not having to buy FC or FCoE SAN. Instead, we buy servers with their own storage.

Product looks like it is in the end of development. HPE will be probably be merging with SimpliVity. I hope they will continue the product as we already have multiple HW servers besides HPE, and a software SDS means more flexibility for us.

Easy and cheap High Availability is most valuable for us. Also, the VSA (virtual appliance) version enables us to reuse already installed hardware. You do not need to worry about RAID and components anymore, because even a whole chassis loss does not stop this product.

We are able to build server clusters without external storage and still provide high availability. We are able to run the VSA version inside the actual servers, thus converging server and storage in same units.

The new Quorum Witness function is promising for easier deployment but needs better reliability.

We have been using StoreVirtual solutions since 2010 when it was known as LeftHand.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

We have had no issues with the stability.

We have had no issues scaling it.

Customer service is outstanding.

Technical support is excellent.

We have used many monolithic and traditional storage systems and all proved to not be highly available with single units. However, StoreVirtual can be split into two, providing you the benefit of redundant active data centers without doubling the cost.

Initial setup is easy, but the differences from traditional storage requires some learning curve. You need to know about managers concept of StoreVirtual. Fortunately newer versions of centralized management console (CMC) provides warnings when you have configurations that would result in reduced availability.

HPE Installation Services are recommended. Since we are an integrator, we provide this.

ROI usually takes about a year.

If you think about high availability the product is very cheap because it is an all inclusive offering. You need to buy licenses and two of traditional products compared to StoreVirtual.

The VSA version is free for every brand server up to 1TB/node up to three nodes. There is also a 60 day trial for more than 1TB storage. You just need the license key to continue managing the product without reinstalling if you purchase it.

It is the only product that provides High Availability without depending on OS multipath I/O. It looks like a single unit from the outside, thus there is no need for failover/failback because all nodes are active. It is like a metro train compared to a classic diesel train, meaning it has an engine in every car. Adding capacity means adding performance because you are adding controllers, too. We can’t say it is the fastest product on the planet, but it is definitely not slow. High Availability means synchronized replication over the network, adding a little latency but providing High Availability.

Since it is IP-based, it is important to make sure a network problem does not result in the collapse of storage network. It is best to have redundant switches that do not share the same network as applications. VLANS are definitely recommended.

Pay attention to the managers running and make sure your failover manager is not bound to any nodes. A failover manager needs to be alive for smaller clusters to survive complete hardware/network failures. Make sure there is no single point of failure that would result in multiple nodes going down.

The most valuable feature is that it allows me to have more servers in my data center. Also, the support I get from HP is tremendously valuable. We have VMware, Microsoft, and HP blades, enclosures, and 3PAR in the data center, but HP provides us with a single point-of-contact for any issue. I'm very happy with the support and I've actually seen them worry more about issues than I have been.

The biggest benefit is cost savings because I have to bring in a lot of new technology. For example, with servers, we need one for archiving, another for BI, and another for IT support. With the new virtual environment in ConvergedSystem, I don't need to purchase new servers because I can just create a new server and continue work.

HP needs to be more careful about the partners they select for implementation. With a virtual environment, HP cannot just provide hardware to the customer and expect the customer to complete the implementation themselves. With the virtual environment of ConvergedSystem, you have to do a lot of integrations and software installations. HP should have stricter mechanisms as to which implementation partners they provide their customers. I've had issues with implementation partners, but HP's support has been great and they eventually resolved my problems.

There are stability issues, but I'm happy with the support. No technology is error free, that's why HP has support.

It is highly scalable. We have four links that contain nine servers, and the enclosure itself can go up to 16 blades. The infrastructure has many things, such as FlexFabric, SAN switches, network switches, storage, and the enclosure. If I need to increase capacity, I only need to increase the number of blades and to put in new discs into my 3PAR servers. I believe that with this infrastructure, I can scale for the next seven years.

It fulfills all my requirements, the price is good, and it's scalable.