Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell EqualLogic PS series vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Dell EqualLogic PS series
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
NAS (8th), All-Flash Storage (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) category, the mindshare of Dell EqualLogic PS series is 4.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 10.2%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ10.2%
Dell EqualLogic PS series4.3%
Other85.5%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

Khuram Ayyaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Executive at Virtual University
Has enabled uninterrupted access to educational platforms and simplified storage management
Dell EqualLogic PS series is easily scalable, and we can add extra boxes and storage. It was easy to deploy during COVID. Deploying Dell EqualLogic PS series is straightforward, with no complexity involved. Dell EqualLogic PS series is a good product. We did not experience any failures in the last six to seven years, and it is still running as our storage for offline data. There are snapshot capabilities in data protection available, but we did not use that feature because it consumes much space. We have only 150 terabytes of space and simply use it to create volumes without utilizing it for snapshots. We use thin provisioning in Dell EqualLogic PS series, but I did not explore that feature further.
CO
Information Systems & Security Administrator at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Ease of use in data center boosts resilience and infrastructure efficiency
I find the HPE 3PAR StoreServ valuable for its ease of use and resilience, which is beneficial. The main benefits I have seen from having HPE 3PAR StoreServ include its use at a small branch I managed for about three years with around 60 users. It operates effectively because it is an HPE product we use there. I have not experienced any significant issues besides occasional IT-related ones, such as local database problems. Since handing over the administration of the system to someone else and moving to another department, there have not been any issues. There are many features that exist but I haven't needed to try. Before moving out of that role in my organization, I knew it was a product I enjoyed working with for infrastructure purposes. After completing my new role, I intend to return to infrastructure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can always trust it. It is stable."
"We were attracted by the flexibility of being able to put in a new shelf whenever we needed to, to expand."
"The technical support for EqualLogic has been universally outstanding."
"The support was excellent."
"Dell's technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature of Dell EqualLogic PS series auto tiering by using this feature, the customer can get higher performance on a valuable budget."
"It is stable and scalable."
"I have been using Equallogic arrays for myself and my customers for over seven years now, and they continue to be my gold standard for SMB storage."
"With the support that our organization has, I can talk to someone right away if I have an issue. It has been very good."
"Provides High-Availability, security, and high performance"
"The most valuable feature when we purchased it was that it was a four-node system."
"It's a very attractive product that is easy to use and deploy."
"​It is fast and stable. It is really helping us a lot in terms of data store, etc."
"We changed all the storage to the 3PAR within a few weeks without any downtime or anything, and it was very, very good."
"I really like the new RMC (Recovery Manager Cental) software that was introduced with the 3.0 or 3.1 update. It allows us to use our data protector with our 3PAR and give it a nicer front-end than the SSMC did."
"Transparent redundancy for VMware virtual machines, because this makes it possible that storage switches over from one system to another without interruption of the VMs."
 

Cons

"Do not go for EQL. It will be out of production in a few years."
"It's kind of expensive when you buy the EqualLogic solution because, as you grow, you have to keep buying another controller. It can be more expensive with time."
"Synchronous replication uses space inefficiently."
"It is at the end of support and no longer supported. We have to move our VMware to another storage platform, and we have decided to use Dell PowerStore. We like Dell's products, and it is a new platform with a lot of features."
"6510 and 6610 have two iSCSI connections in each controller. Why do 6110xxx members have only one, and why do the same members have the possibility of having an active iSCSI interface in the passive controller? It could make a lot of noise with a failover."
"The solution is out of date and the new version has a lot of advanced features."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series could improve by providing fiber channel connectivity. Fiber channel connectivity is not supported, which is a requirement of advanced applications, such as SAP HANA. SAP HANA recommends fiber channel connectivity, but the Dell EqualLogic PS series is only an ISCSI data storage."
"The product is reaching the end-of-lifecycle."
"I'd like it to be quicker."
"There is a slight difference between what we expected and what was delivered."
"Anything new can be complex. There were some things in the initial deployment that I was not happy about."
"We have had issues in the past, I'm not going to lie."
"Generally, the management of the multiple systems that we have is really the only problem, always having to go to all these separate tools to manage everything."
"It's a very complex platform to manage and it's not cheap either. It didn't really give us the level of flexibility we had for very, very small workloads."
"I would like to see NVMe support, not only on the disk side, but also in the NVMe over Fibre Channel."
"I would like to have more details on alerting. It is not real granular right now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I didn't buy it. It was another person seven years ago. So, I don't really know, but all storage platforms cost a lot of money. It is probably in the mid-range, but you get what you pay for."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series can improve its scale-out feature. Sometimes the customer has a limited budget for storage expansion. When they want to expand their capacity, they need to buy a complete controller plus storage capacity, which sometimes is out of their budget. If Dell EqualLogic PS series support could scale up the environment in which only hard drive extension controllers should be supported, then customers can expand within a lower budget."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"Price-wise, the solution is cheap. I rate it a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is very cheap, and ten is very expensive."
"​It is a fair price."
"There was a one-time cost when we procured this product and there are no monthly or yearly licensing fees."
"If HPE reduced the price of 3PAR StoreServ they would be more attractive to mid-range companies."
"The price of the solution could be reduced for the license and for support."
"The licensing cost for HPE 3PAR StoreServ is expensive."
"3PAR was quite a bit less money than EMC, and that was one of the deciding factors."
"For the entire six node cluster and the two 7200 units plus the Brocade Fibre switches, we financed it through HPE Financial. It was $850,000. We leased that and paid it off in October of 2018."
"We are going to buy eight nodes this year and eight nodes next year. Eventually, we are not going to want to buy large storage devices and probably utilize just storage, but in a different manner going forward."
"This is not an expensive product but every time you add capacity to it, you need to pay for re-balancing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) solutions are best for your needs.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user182013 - PeerSpot reviewer
Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
No data available
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise74
Large Enterprise170
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell EqualLogic PS series?
The technical support for the solution was really good.
What needs improvement with Dell EqualLogic PS series?
I do not have anything in mind regarding new capabilities for Dell products at this time.
What is your primary use case for Dell EqualLogic PS series?
We are essentially a university, and we have deployed Dell EqualLogic PS series in our data centers to run our production sites, student portals, websites, our on-premises portal, and campus manage...
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?
As a customer, I always prefer to have a lower price. Any customer will always ask for the cheaper price.
 

Also Known As

EqualLogic PS series
HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FAW Foundry, AW Engineering, Unimat, eLongNet Information Technology, BDO Brasil, Odyssey Space Research
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell EqualLogic PS series vs. HPE 3PAR StoreServ and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.