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CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
CTERA Enterprise File Services reduced costs and time, minimized manual storage, and eliminated SSD and alternative storage needs.
Sentiment score
7.2
HPE 3PAR StoreServ boosts performance, reduces costs, enhances efficiency, and provides quick ROI, leading to high user satisfaction.
Adding SSD storage to Windows file servers is expensive, and we no longer need to back up those devices.
I am positive that CTERA has helped reduce the total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for manual storage management and reducing storage service processes.
The return on investment is very good.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform provides responsive support, rated highly for proactive assistance and efficient issue resolution by knowledgeable agents.
Sentiment score
7.3
HPE 3PAR StoreServ's customer service is reliable, proactive, yet experiences vary, notably in communication and escalation processes.
They swiftly address concerns and take ownership of the call, providing a very satisfactory support experience.
High-priority issues are handled promptly.
I would rate their support a ten out of ten.
If we activate the 3PAR call home function, then the remote technician always has access to our StoreServ and provides strong suggestions to improve our 3PAR performance.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform is scalable and easy to expand globally, though CPU and memory licensing constraints may pose challenges.
Sentiment score
7.5
HPE 3PAR StoreServ offers scalable storage, efficiently handling diverse workloads and future needs, with minimal upgrade complexity issues.
If we need to upgrade CPU and memory, we should be able to do that without a license upgrade.
CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow.
It offers good scalability options, including vertical and outward scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
CTERA's platform faced initial bugs but improved over time, earning high stability ratings with reliable data access.
Sentiment score
8.1
HPE 3PAR StoreServ is stable and reliable, with minimal downtime, seamless updates, and effective support for setup challenges.
It has been pretty stable since then.
We had things deployed for years, and we were suddenly getting cloud sync issues that were crashing our sites.
It is very stable and reliable.
HPE 3PAR is a very stable solution from HPE, and people have been using this for more than five years.
My experience with the stability and performance of HPE 3PAR StoreServ involved one crash, which was caused by failing hardware.
 

Room For Improvement

The CTERA platform needs improvements in monitoring, updates, UI, logging, and performance, while users value current features and support.
HPE 3PAR StoreServ needs improved usability, support, integration, and cost management while enhancing performance, efficiency, scalability, and cloud compatibility.
AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring.
It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices.
One suggested improvement for the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the ability to distribute data across multiple active backend storage nodes rather than the current limitation of a single active node.
In Pakistan, some parts are not readily available, and we need to import them from Singapore or other countries.
HPE 3PAR StoreServ might be missing certain features available in newer products.
 

Setup Cost

CTERA offers cost-effective enterprise file services with flexible licensing, providing significant savings over EMC and Nasuni, especially in Israel.
HPE 3PAR StoreServ pricing ranges from $60,000 to $2 million, with competitive rates but costly additional licensing.
Unlike other solutions that require hardware purchases, CTERA offers software licensing with flexibility across multiple infrastructure providers.
CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure.
I find the pricing reasonable.
It is expensive, however, when we compare it to the features provided by HPE, the price-to-performance ratio is very good.
 

Valuable Features

CTERA excels in scalability, flexibility, data management, and protection, making it ideal for hybrid cloud and remote work environments.
HPE 3PAR StoreServ excels in performance and integration, offering ease of use, automation, and robust storage management features.
As soon as something is written to the device, CTERA copies it to the cloud, where it's versioned with snapshots so we can recover it.
A vital advantage of this platform is its instantaneous recovery capability, allowing seamless access to a secondary gateway if the primary one fails.
It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution.
There is no downtime when we upgrade our 3PAR systems.
I find the HPE 3PAR StoreServ valuable for its ease of use and resilience, which is beneficial.
 

Categories and Ranking

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in NAS
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Storage (11th), Cloud Backup (11th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (10th)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in NAS
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
303
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (3rd), All-Flash Storage (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 1.8%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 3.5%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection
The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.
Muhammad Saqib - PeerSpot reviewer
Uninterrupted upgrades accelerate performance with good support
I would rate the solution eight out of ten. It should be noted that in Pakistan, some parts are not readily available, and we need to import them from Singapore or other countries. We encountered an issue with a customer where the midplane failed and was not available. We had to wait for several days for a replacement, even in a 24/7 support case. Additionally, we faced motherboard failures in the customer's environment, encountering two motherboard failures simultaneously. We obtained one motherboard immediately, yet had to wait ten days for another. These issues should have been resolved promptly given the 24/7 support level.
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Comparison Review

it_user182013 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 1, 2015
Measuring Up: EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
69%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
University
3%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...
What's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?
HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspective, it is reliable, easy to set up, stable, and offers quality block storage. All...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE 3PAR StoreServ?
It is expensive, however, when we compare it to the features provided by HPE, the price-to-performance ratio is very good.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. HPE 3PAR StoreServ and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,641 professionals have used our research since 2012.