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FreeNAS 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

FreeNAS
Ranking in NAS
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in NAS
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
303
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (4th), All-Flash Storage (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the NAS category, the mindshare of FreeNAS is 2.0%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 3.2%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ3.2%
FreeNAS2.0%
Other94.8%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Vincenzo D'Aniello - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versions automatically enabled the Linux kernel, yet with the recent version, this was no longer the case. Now, there was the possibility of being able to create Debian-based jails, and finding the documentation was not easy or fast. That said, in the end, we succeeded. If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented.
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

"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"3PAR is easy to keep running and does not require too much effort. It has been very reliable, which is key."
"It runs. I don't have a problem with it. If it needs an update, I can do it in the middle of the day with nobody being the wiser. It is phenomenal in that respect. As a hospital, I get two hours every quarter to reboot things, so it is imperative that nothing goes down."
"We're using the all-flash arrays and, with the deduplication and compression, it just really fits our virtualization environment very well."
"​It is fast and stable. It is really helping us a lot in terms of data store, etc."
"​We have much better performance than we managed earlier and are now saving lots of space.​"
"Proactive support. Before we notice that there's a problem in the storage, or any part, any hard disk, they already notify us, and within four hours, the product is delivered. Within the next hour after product delivery, the engineer is available to support me."
"The overall quality of the product is fantastic. Advanced Optimization is one of the best features I never thought I needed until I actually used it and saw it in action."
"I like that it's stable. This is the reason why we're using these products. We work in the broadcast market, and stability is very important. HPE has global services, and that's also important. Dell and HPE are some big companies, and their solutions are robust and stable."
 

Cons

"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ is at its end of life and they are forcing us to purchase new hardware. They will no longer support this solution. They should provide support for a longer time. For example, 10 years instead of five years."
"Setting up 3PAR is somewhat complicated, and it took about a week."
"We have had some bad issues on stability."
"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."
"It needs better dedupe. It is hard for all the older generation arrays to put up dedupe because they tend to do the other stuff so much better. They have to keep the stability before any other new feature."
"This solution is becoming dated."
"Sometimes control is rebooting and nobody knows why, so there are issues."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is okay. It suits our needs."
"For our configuration, we pay a little bit less than €10,000 ($12,000 USD) per year."
"We use the free version of the program."
"Its licensing cost is based on the hardware capacity."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"We don't pay for any licensing fees."
"They have added features, such as the compression and duplication, which have further increased our ROI."
"The solution has two parts: software and hardware, and you need to buy licenses for some features."
"It has greatly reduced my management overhead time."
"3PAR was quite a bit less money than EMC, and that was one of the deciding factors."
"Since the prices of the flash storage has gone down tremendously, I would definitely recommend going for the all-flash storage array or 3PAR. It is a big expensive even now, but it will be the future of all industries."
"This product is quite expensive and in addition, we subscribe to 24/7 support with a four-hour response time."
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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
Comms Service Provider
14%
Performing Arts
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business72
Midsize Enterprise74
Large Enterprise170
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Morroni Technologies Inc., Creative Integrations
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Find out what your peers are saying about FreeNAS vs. HPE 3PAR StoreServ and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.