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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 April 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

"It has contributed to the implementation of virtualization and all its benefits."
"The product is very stable."
"Dell EqualLogic PS series is a highly stable solution."
"The solution offers very good read capacities, the size of the box we have is pretty decent, the speed on offer is very good, we have found the initial setup to be fairly straightforward, and Dell's technical support is very good."
"The solution can scale."
"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."
"We were attracted by the flexibility of being able to put in a new shelf whenever we needed to, to expand."
"We've dealt with technical support and have found them to be helpful and responsive."
"This system has been (by far) the easiest to use, manage, and expand."
"I recommend this system to everybody because it doesn't fail."
"It is incredibly easy to manage; we’re getting the performance that we need, we plug it in and it works, and everybody forgets about it, which is what we need."
"What I like about 3PAR is just how easy it is to use."
"When we started using 3PAR what we liked was the simplicity of the product. We needed a higher performance storage and, in our support model, we needed to keep the simplicity of the storage architecture, keep it as clean and as manageable as we could."
"Probably the most beneficial aspect from my viewpoint is that it has reduced the amount of time that I spend administering storage requests by at least 50%."
"3PAR is fairly easy to use; we have used a few different arrays in the past, and they were a lot more complicated, but this one was fast to bring up and start using right away, easy to keep running, does not require too much effort, and has been very reliable, which is key."
"The solution is easy to use and very stable."
 

Cons

"We are having some issues right now where some of the database operations are recovering and we find there are so many IOPS that EqualLogic fans cannot handle it."
"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."
"EqualLogic is really not going to be relevant in the marketplace too much longer."
"Higher price at entry level systems compared to competition."
"The performance isn't as good as, for example, Nimble."
"It is at the end of support and no longer supported."
"The searchable online documentation is missing."
"Three of the four devices have been rock solid, and one of them had a string of issues that we eventually resolved."
"However, when the issue came with Spectre, and then the L1TF vulnerability came out, those really affected us, so hopefully we will find a solution that meets our needs going forward."
"My 3PAR array is too old to support File Persona, and I would love to be able to do that, but that's something that we would need more powerful controllers."
"I would really like to see it be more efficient at reclaiming storage when deleting something, instead of just being thin at the start."
"I would like to see improvement in the product's scalability. As a partner, I had serious problems because of the competition from Dell EMC and Pure."
"Upgrades could be improved. We would like to see more upgrades."
"In new releases, I'd really like to see it more targeted towards hyperconverged."
"We have about 1.2 petabytes of storage sitting on the 3PARs at the moment replicated; we'd really like to get into data compression and deduplication on those devices, but at this stage we can do that only on the SSD in the environment and not on the remaining storage."
"On certain of their features that we have to use to migrate data, it tends to go off for about 60 or 90 seconds toward the end of the work."
 

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."
"It seemed expensive at first, but the durability lowered the cost of ownership dramatically over time."
"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."
"Licensing is pretty straightforward."
"All features are out of the box. The license will be in the virtual, OS, or application layer."
"​It is a fair price."
"Initial packages include all upgrades and services."
"There are annual maintenance costs beyond the original licensing period."
"It is quite difficult to decide on the cost. At one point, I was the project lead to cover with some people, but the price was important and we had its compression calculated. At that moment, it was fair because that was one of the things moving their product due to the cost of HPE 3PAR StoreServ as they were competing with Hitachi and IBM A9000, which I'm not sure if is still available."
"We don't pay for any licensing fees."
"You can't get software maintenance from a third party. You have to do it from HPE, which is a letdown."
"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."
"Our licensing cost are $32,000 annually."
"It's a good price."
"The total cost of ownership really is worth every penny."
"The price of the solution could be reduced for the license and for support."
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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
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
 

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.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.