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Dell SC Series vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell SC Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Frame-Based Disk Arrays (3rd)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
302
Ranking in other categories
NAS (7th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 3.0%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
Steven McClendon - PeerSpot reviewer
Superior platform with excellent snapshots and cost-saving auto-tiering
I'm a big fan of the SC Series platform. Its feature set is superior to some of the other platforms. The snapshots on SC are excellent, allowing for multiple snapshot schedules for any one system. The auto-tiering functionality intelligently moves new data to the highest performance tier and then progresses it down to less expensive tiers over time, providing cost savings for customers.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"I appreciate the performance."
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"With federation, you can have multiple systems across sites. You can treat them as one, and with a live migration, volumes don't go down. You can move them from site to site, doing maintenance, and keep your environment up."
"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."
"The solution is stable."
"The interface is easy to use which makes the product user-friendly."
"It was very easy to install, maintain, and provides excellent manageability."
"The product offers good performance and is quite powerful."
"Dell SC Series offers a lot of performance, being one of the best performing storages Dell ever made."
"One of the most valuable features is the capability to switch between all-flash to hybrid, which have have actually done for one of our arrays. We started with the hybrid, with the limited if I'm not mistaken, and then over a period of time, we swapped all the hybrids with the SSDs. This was one of the big features because it gave us the capability to not stick with just one kind of media. Secondly, since it has sorted clustering, we were able to bring in the newer boxes and have it all clustered together. These were the two main features that we really looked into, which benefited our use case from an expansion/growth perspective. Another valuable feature is the ease of management."
"The Remote Copy Group is amazing for the replication stuff."
"The availability of the server has given us increased stability in our environment."
"It's a really stable solution. We have no problems with the customer, no negative feedback from them on this."
"It's a very popular product for enterprise storage."
"The ease of management is its most valuable feature. It is so much easier to manage storage on a 3PAR array than anything that we have had before."
"The solutions has increased our performance. We went from 24,000 IOPS to around 70,000 IOPS."
"When we bought it, the big sell for us was what they called "wide striping", how they striped the data and could get performance on a cheaper disk. Nowadays, the newer models that are out, which we are going to in the next couple of years, the most valuable feature is mainly being able to achieve such high IOPS in such a small chassis."
"Any action we want to do with a Dell EMC product needs a license. But with 3PAR's converged solution, at least there is no need to purchase more licenses to get the all the features that we need. We can get basic and mid-range features without licenses."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"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 is on the expensive side."
"The ease of use could be improved. It took me a while to learn it."
"The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do."
"The administration and support (on the way that they delivered) was a little bit slow."
"We had times that we needed a file service solution. We've used FluidFS, but it's a solution that is being transitioned out."
"While the scalability is good, there are certain limitations."
"I would like to see an integrated key manager in the controllers. Currently, it's an external product. It would be nice to have the option of having a built-in key for self-encrypting drive features."
"The connection should be better integrated with the network to offer a better view of the system."
"From a performance point of view, it's getting a bit old."
"Our support in the US has been phenomenal, no issues at all. But the European support was poor initially."
"In the next release, I would like them to make it a little easier to find where everything is in the new console. It now has the OneView look and sometimes I don't think the OneView look is enough. It's too different from the original console that was a separate system."
"It needs the addition of InfoSight, which is the most critical, along with predictive analytics and AI."
"A lot of tasks, you have to manually set up. They need to already have them set up and working. Then, you can just go in and tweak them if you need to."
"The performance of the solution is not good anymore and the software is different from all the other types and is not compatible. There are more negative things at this moment than positive. This is why we are removing them all from our organization this year."
"While the stability is pretty good, it could always be improved upon."
"It is suitable for medium-sized businesses and data centers with less number of users and less important data. It is not really an enterprise-level solution. It needs more capacity. It is also not really stable. It should be more stable. It should also support any server model. It is really weak in this area."
"As long as they can keep the solution stable, it will be good. Stability is very important to us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"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."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"It's absolutely affordable. Again, not having to do a forklift upgrade like some of the others have had to do in the past, it's very affordable for our customers and they continue to buy."
"It has a good price point and offers some value-added enterprise features."
"The maintenance is usually pretty good. It's not like some of the others where they increase it in the fourth, fifth, or sixth years."
"This product is too expensive compared to others, and I don't see any value in using it."
"We have found the solution to be affordable."
"There are costs involving the solution, vendor fees and product safety which are additional."
"The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations."
"The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."
"3PAR was quite a bit less money than EMC, and that was one of the deciding factors."
"It is a bit more expensive. IBM is cheaper than HPE in Turkey."
"We have seen ROI. While the costs were quite high at the time of purchase for our environment, the ease of use and the fact that it hasn't failed all the time, working fine, that makes it worth buying."
"I have to renew support in October for the existing solution. That will cost me roughly $50,000 this year, which in the grand scheme of things, $50,000 is not that much compared to paying $850,000. However, it will be the last year that I'll be able to get direct support from HPE. Therefore, product has to be replaced in 2020."
"Our licensing cost are $32,000 annually."
"This is not an expensive product but every time you add capacity to it, you need to pay for re-balancing."
"Cost-wise, it is a little bit on the higher side, but it is an awesome product."
"The licensing cost for HPE 3PAR StoreServ is expensive."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
21%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
83%
Computer Software Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
2%
Manufacturing Company
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
What do you like most about Dell SC Series?
I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?
Cost considerations are crucial when choosing between solutions like Dell and NetApp. Sometimes Dell offers better pe...
What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?
In the future, I want any box that comes on-premises to have the provision to integrate with cloud storage. If I want...
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 perspectiv...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
SC Series Storage, Compellent
HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. HPE 3PAR StoreServ and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.