HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and Pure Storage FlashArray based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. Pure Storage FlashArray Report (Updated: March 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It has good, reliable, fast storage.""Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues.""Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.""The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature.""What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate.""The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes.""The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability.""The solution is very straightforward to set up."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pros →

"It has allowed us to set up a fully functioning disaster recovery site with replication, which we have been able to configure between our 3PAR systems.""The initial setup was very straightforward.""If you can handle the IOPS, throughput is a natural byproduct. Usually, IOPS is where you are capped. HPE has done a great job in making sure that our IOP-intensive EMRs stay up and running. We have really good performance on them.""We have been able to scale faster and get our applications out in much less time. We don't need to worry about the platform's ability to manage the workload, so we are pretty happy.""It has improved the ability of the executives to get proper insights.""The deduplication is pretty impressive because it will shrink. We also do some clones in addition to the snapshots, where we can have multiple clones. These reduce the actual written storage by as much as 50 percent.""It is easy to manage and performs very well.""It's reliable and it's fast."

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"I use all the features of this solution and I find them to be easy to use and functional, such as the compression and capacity to expand.""At this point, I don't know anything that they could provide in a better way.""Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on.""The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard.""Cost, racial per terabyte, and speed is why we chose PureStorage. It was no brainer.""Processes that used to take 40 minutes to two hours can be completed in five minutes.""It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive.""The all-flash disc is the most valuable feature of this solution."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Pros →

Cons
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified.""You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me.""If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure.""There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features.""We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency.""Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services.""It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking.""The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Cons →

"There are issues formulating the upgraded disk.""HPE could improve by raising awareness when a new product is launched. They must think of ways to better serve and engage with their enterprise customers. HPE is selling enterprise products and mission-critical support.""Extending is not a problem, scalability is okay. But once you buy additional box of disks, you have to wait for HPE to contact you with their plan for implementation, for connecting, and it can take several weeks. So, you have the box and you have to wait for several weeks to actually implement it.""The tool has low storage and low performance. This can be solved by adding more disco to the solution. The product’s pricing is also suited for enterprise businesses rather than smaller ones.I would like to see better performance, UI, and compatibility with other products in future releases.""HPE 3PAR StoreServ could have better integration into the cloud and converged infrastructure.""I would like to see NVMe support, not only on the disk side, but also in the NVMe over Fibre Channel.""We are seeing that there are some enhancements which are required in the SSMC console. There are some features that we do not see in the dashboard.""I would like the documentation easy to find. There is a lot of documentation, but sometimes it is hard to find. You have to do a lot of searching to find it."

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"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption.""The file functionality could be better.""The price of this solution could be improved.""I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings.""We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help.""I would like to see a Nagios monitoring plugin which watches the health and performance of the system. The only one available just checks volume capacity.""I would like to see them develop the ability to integrate with more AWS services. There are increasingly more and more services coming out from AWS but there are also certain constraints where we can't move everything over to a cloud as well. We would like for things that are on-premise to be easily integrated with AWS.""Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
  • "We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
  • "With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
  • "Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
  • "As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
  • "They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
  • "Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
  • "The licensing is on a yearly basis."
  • More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It's very reliable and it was cost competitive with other arrays at the time that we purchased it."
  • "The main issue with 3PAR right now is its cost problem. Right now, there are some other storage cabinets that can do what 3PAR can do. Now, they can do it as well with a more revised budget."
  • "To be more competitive, as customer, we need a more aggressive price that includes all the licenses available."
  • "Nowadays, from a storage point of view, there are so many vendors in the market. So cost is one of the factors that pushed us to go with HPE 3PAR. Cost-wise they're pretty competitive."
  • "As a school, we always have​ low budgets. We are a nonprofit organization. We do not have too much budget, so we care about prices, discounts, and especially about the product quality. The last 16 years, we have been an HPE customer. We are very much happy with HPE products."
  • "It is fairly inexpensive to scale."
  • "Budget wise, 3PAR is a lot of money compared to other solutions, but what is in the 3PAR integration that customers are getting now from the Nimble and InfoSight acquisitions, it is worthwhile."
  • "For the price that we were able to acquire it, we have seen it give us the performance and stability that we require to run our enterprise."
  • More HPE 3PAR StoreServ Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
  • "There is always room for negotiation."
  • "The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
  • "It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
  • "For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
  • "We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
  • "It is a cheaper solution."
  • "Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a few posts already. In 2015, though, the HP giant began to rouse and challenge the mainstream status quo with its 3PAR offering. Quantifying 3PAR's platform is different from XtremIO and Pure, though, as it can seem amorphous given the many ways it can be quoted. Are you asking for all flash? 3PAR will give you that and lay claim to the best-of-breed title. Oh, but you want some mass storage akin to archival or virtual tape, too? 3PAR changes jerseys and shouts, "I'm it!" Is it, though? Let's put 3PAR against XtremIO and see how they measure up! Define the Conversation  The hard part about these comparisons and competitive analyses is that we aren't talking about products of the same species or specialization. I struggle to put it properly, but consider it this way. In pre-AFA days (the age of traditional spinners like NetApp FAS3040, EMC CLARiiON or VNX, and even last-gen 3PAR), the contest was like pitting a Toyota Camry against a Nissan Altima. They did most of the same things with minor strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Talking about XtremIO versus 3PAR 74xx is more of a discussion about construction-grade, heavy-duty cranes versus massive earth movers. They are in the… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover… more »
    Top Answer:I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class… more »
    Top Answer:HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspective… more »
    Top Answer:The tool’s price is higher compared to other products. The solution is 20% more expensive than other storage.
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
    Top Answer:We have customers who use a three-year or five-year license. We also have customers who use Evergreen.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
    HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

    HPE 3PAR StoreServ is an AI-driven storage solution that prevents issues before they occur by learning and adjusting in real time. The solution offers a tier-1 all-flash foundation for mission-critical workloads. HPE 3PAR StoreServ was designed with more than 3M IOPS and consistent sub-ms latency. It aims to transform midrange and enterprise deployments with solutions that scale from a few TBs to more than 20PBs. In addition, the solution is built to modernize data centers and is made to handle unpredictable workloads effortlessly. By implementing HPE 3PAR StoreServ, you gain automated and rapid provisioning, hardware-accelerated deduplication and compression, and a multi-tenant design.

    HPE 3PAR StoreServ Features

    HPE 3PAR StoreServ has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Flexibility: With HPE 3PAR StoreServ, you can easily deploy highly configurable, scale-out storage for multi-tenant workloads.
    • Always-on availability for your data: HPE 3PAR StoreServ includes an always-on resilient storage infrastructure for your hypervisors and applications. In addition, with Peer Persistence, your virtual machines (VMs), hosts, and data can move freely across data centers rather than being constrained by their physical boundaries.
    • Fast, scalable performance: HPE 3PAR StoreServ enables you to accelerate consistent mixed-workload performance and also provides necessary QoS levels that are optimized for your highest priority applications.
    • Performance insights: HPE 3PAR StoreServ helps you gain performance insights in real time, and anticipate as well as prevent issues across the infrastructure stack by utilizing cross-stack analytics.
    • Flash optimized data protection: With tier-1 data services, multi-tenant security, and copy data management, you can avoid downtime.
    • Seamless data mobility: HPE 3PAR StoreServ makes it possible for you to not only experience converged data protection, but also experience seamless data mobility services, at flash speed, from the edge to the cloud.

    HPE 3PAR StoreServ Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Easy to manage. The web interface to manage the units is a great asset and one that makes managing storage easy.
    • User-friendly GUI
    • Exceptionally fast and well-managed replication

    • Low latency
    • Hybrid storage gives you the ability to assign different roles to different types of storage arrays inside one enclosure
    • Both file-level and block-level replication

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the HPE 3PAR StoreServ solution.

    A SAN Consultant at a tech services company says, “One of the features that I like the most is the data replication element. The reason I like it is due to the fact that it's pretty clean on replicating data over to a second site. The product stands on its own in heavy enterprise environments. It's easy to make changes without affecting the environment. The solution is very easy to use. The product is very robust and offers very good performance.”

    A Storage Manager at a financial services firm mentions, "There are a lot of screens for easy management where you can change some settings. But after a few years, the important settings were better after an upgrade, and all the vendors have other ways to upgrade their systems."

    A Senior IT Infrastructure & Data Center Operation Engineer at Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) comments, “The adaptive optimization is the biggest feature in 3PAR. 3PAR is very usable with thin volume because it detects zeros while writing. Every time I tell the hypervisor to make the full provisioning, it makes the volume as simple provisioning in 3PAR, not full provisioning.”

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    Sample Customers
    Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
    Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Manufacturing Company18%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company9%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Energy/Utilities Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization81%
    Computer Software Company3%
    Manufacturing Company2%
    Government2%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization31%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise34%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business5%
    Midsize Enterprise84%
    Large Enterprise11%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise42%
    Buyer's Guide
    HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. Pure Storage FlashArray
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HPE 3PAR StoreServ is ranked 9th in All-Flash Storage with 299 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. HPE 3PAR StoreServ is rated 8.6, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of HPE 3PAR StoreServ writes "The product's technical support is outstanding as I can reach someone right away". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". HPE 3PAR StoreServ is most compared with HPE Primera, Dell Unity XT, HPE Nimble Storage, NetApp AFF and IBM FlashSystem, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VMware vSAN. See our HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.