HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera comparison

HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. HPE 3PAR StoreServ is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.3, while HPE Primera is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. HPE 3PAR StoreServ holds a 2.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to HPE Primera’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of HPE 3PAR StoreServ users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of HPE Primera users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera compete in enterprise storage solutions. HPE Primera appears to have the upper hand due to its superior features and user satisfaction.

Features: HPE 3PAR StoreServ is noted for its performance, reliability, and competitive pricing. HPE Primera offers advanced AI-driven management, predictive analytics, and seamless upgradability with enhanced data protection.

Room for Improvement: HPE 3PAR StoreServ needs more intuitive management software, better scalability options, and updates in usability. HPE Primera could improve in initial setup complexity, maintenance costs, and setup processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE 3PAR StoreServ generally has a straightforward deployment process. HPE Primera users report higher satisfaction with customer service and post-deployment support.

Pricing and ROI: HPE 3PAR StoreServ is cost-effective with favorable ROI due to lower initial setup costs. HPE Primera, despite higher upfront costs, provides excellent ROI through advanced features and enhanced performance.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera

April 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 2.9%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 4.2%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

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.

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Muhammad Saqib

System Engineer at Hybrid Tech

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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Taufeeq Rauf

Head of IT at NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATION TECHNOLOGIES (PVT.) LTD.

Offers a simple user interface and is useful for data replication

I use HPE Primera for mission-critical applications. My company uses the product as a storage solution for our machines. The availability of HPE Primera in our company is critical for us, considering that we operate in an HA environment where we can't have downtime since we need to deal with cheque clearance for banks. The product's interface is simple to use. I am satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The ease of use of the product's interface has directly had an impact on our company's operations, along with the improvement in the availability and performance of machines. Compared to HPE Primera, I work with a much more reliable storage solution like Dell PowerStore. Compared to HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore's features related to deduplication are very good, and it also offers a physical storage capacity of eight TB, which can be expanded up to forty TB. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it only after taking into consideration their usage and requirements. From the price and performance point of view, Dell PowerStore is a better choice. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"I appreciate the performance."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"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."

"It is easy to scale, easy to manage, and easy to configure."

"Being able to snapshot things for backup purposes has been key. We do that on our databases four times a day."

"Resilience and reliability, unmatched. They take good care of us."

"We're able to move things around with more agility. I can take it off one server and slap it on another in a couple of minutes... And the speed is outstanding."

"We never had a blackout and we have never been offline."

"It has helped with more than just serving data, but also with recovery."

"The optimization features move chunklets or hot spots to faster drives."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ pros

"The most important thing that we had found when we purchased this product around six months back was its 100% availability and uptime."

"For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"One of the most valuable features is the ease of deployment."

"The greatest advantage is the support when we encounter incidents, as HPE's support is highly responsive."

"There has been a lot of changes in HPE Primera OS, and most of the time any package related to it is simple to upgrade. It does not require any support for the operation. The customer can easily deploy any code directly from the GUI which is very good. Additionally, we have individual storage we can allocate and easily manage."

"It is stable and reliable."

"Primera's main advantage is its support for NVM drives and normal flash drives. It has some sort of AI analysis that automatically tells us how to optimize the performance."

More HPE Primera pros

Cons

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"The software layer has to improve."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Feature-wise, with the InfoSight additions, there is a lot of the stuff missing in the intelligent interface. As they grow and push, a lot of it will not tie into Hyper-V."

"I would like to see more cloud-based integrations and more file storage capabilities."

"3PAR has StoreOnce and replication. I would like it if they worked together. Or, if I had Nimble and put that either in DR or a primary cohesive management, but still use the cool features of 3PAR, that would be awesome."

"It should be mentioned that in Pakistan, some parts are not readily available, and we need to import them from Singapore or other countries."

"I would like to be able to deploy and manage 3PAR within OneView Global Dashboard so we do not have to use the interface for 3PAR."

"The solution lacks reliability."

"HPE 3PAR StoreServ could have better integration into the cloud and converged infrastructure."

"I would like to see compatibility with NVMe."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ cons

"We would like to have more flash storage and its stability. This is an area of challenge for us."

"The cost of HPE Primera could be lower."

"Only HPE can manage the product."

"On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities."

"HPE Primera's deduplication area is not as good as the one offered by Dell PowerStore, making it an area where improvements are required."

"HPE Primera is not good enough as a storage solution as it does not provide a good NAS storage."

"When we asked for HPE support to resolve issues, their help was punctual and on time. However, the depth of root cause analysis provided was not satisfying."

"Some application solutions can be more acceptable on the HPE Primera site."

More HPE Primera cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"The product is expensive."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"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."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It has greatly reduced my management overhead time."

"The price of the solution could be reduced for the license and for support."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"This is not an expensive product but every time you add capacity to it, you need to pay for re-balancing."

"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 licensing fees for this solution are merged with all of our HP annual costs, which in total are a couple hundred thousand dollars."

"The price of the license depends. Some people expect more from the hardware. Some expect more from the licensing, and that is because you can receive several licenses nowadays, such as the terabyte license. You buy the storage, and you pay extra for the terabyte license for the software. There is a one-time purchase for the license and you pay annually for the maintenance."

"We don't pay for any licensing fees."

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ pricing and cost advice

"It is basically in the mid-range of the price. It is not cheaper than Hitachi, but it is cheaper than Pure Storage. There are no additional costs. Everything was taken care of in the price."

"HPE Primera is an expensive product but has competitive pricing."

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

"The pricing for HDD was good."

"From what I see, this is competitively-priced and HPE are doing their best to stay competitive."

"HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra."

"Licensing fees are billed on a yearly basis and the cost of GreenLake service is included."

"It’s a reasonable choice. When compared to other options, we've found it to be accessible and within our means."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user182013

Federal Civ/Intel Engineering Lead at Rubrik

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…

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Answers from the Community

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot

Dec 17, 2021

What's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?

See 2 answers

Janet Staver

Tech Blogger

Dec 15, 2021

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 of the capabilities of the hardware (including snapshot, replication, and other specific features) come with it, so there is no need for an additional license. In addition, the AI advantages and analytics with InfoSight are definitely powerful. With HPE Primera you are guaranteed great performance with excellent low latency. The AI driven interface is for hybrid cloud, and it also provides insights into any virtualized infrastructure such as proactive recommendations, performance issues, etc. Whatsmore, the dashboards are also great and user-friendly. And the customization capabilities HPE Primera gives you are excellent. From my experience using HPE Primera, there isn’t any real aspect of the solution that needs to be improved other than its high price point. HPE 3par Storeserv is also easy to use and set up. The solution is robust and makes data performance much faster. The data replication feature of HPE 3par does a good job of replicating data cleanly over to a second site. HPE 3par Storeserv also makes it easy to make changes without it affecting your environment. In addition, it comes with a lot of screens with adjustable settings, which makes management easier. Moreover, it is easy to scale, it is very stable, has a very good interface, is reliable, and also allows you to have tiered storage. However, HPE 3par has limitations when it comes to the number of IOPS the system can do and has limited flexibility in regards to building replication solutions. Conclusion: Ultimately, I chose HPE Primera because 3par Storeserv does not have integration with cloud services, which is something I need.

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Manager7a60

Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 17, 2021

@Janet Staver great summary, couldn't have said it better. However, please note that HPE 3PAR has file support while Primera doesn't. So, weigh that with your use case and requirements.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Educational Organization

85%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

39%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE 3PAR StoreServ?

The compression features are good.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?

HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Primera?

For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Primera?

The solution is quite cost-effective. HPE Primera is about a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than Dell NVMe.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 32% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 21% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 7% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 5% of the time

HPE MSA vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 5% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE 3PAR StoreServ Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 35% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ

April 2025

Download HPE 3PAR StoreServ product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

April 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage

Primera

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

HPE 3PAR StoreServ is an AI-driven storage solution that prevents issues before they occur by learning and adjusting in real time. The solution offers a tier-1 all-flash foundation for mission-critical workloads. HPE 3PAR StoreServ was designed with more than 3M IOPS and consistent sub-ms latency. It aims to transform midrange and enterprise deployments with solutions that scale from a few TBs to more than 20PBs. In addition, the solution is built to modernize data centers and is made to handle unpredictable workloads effortlessly. By implementing HPE 3PAR StoreServ, you gain automated and rapid provisioning, hardware-accelerated deduplication and compression, and a multi-tenant design.

HPE 3PAR StoreServ Features

HPE 3PAR StoreServ has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Flexibility: With HPE 3PAR StoreServ, you can easily deploy highly configurable, scale-out storage for multi-tenant workloads.

Always-on availability for your data: HPE 3PAR StoreServ includes an always-on resilient storage infrastructure for your hypervisors and applications. In addition, with Peer Persistence, your virtual machines (VMs), hosts, and data can move freely across data centers rather than being constrained by their physical boundaries.

Fast, scalable performance: HPE 3PAR StoreServ enables you to accelerate consistent mixed-workload performance and also provides necessary QoS levels that are optimized for your highest priority applications.

Performance insights: HPE 3PAR StoreServ helps you gain performance insights in real time, and anticipate as well as prevent issues across the infrastructure stack by utilizing cross-stack analytics.

Flash optimized data protection: With tier-1 data services, multi-tenant security, and copy data management, you can avoid downtime.

Seamless data mobility: HPE 3PAR StoreServ makes it possible for you to not only experience converged data protection, but also experience seamless data mobility services, at flash speed, from the edge to the cloud.

HPE 3PAR StoreServ Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Easy to manage. The web interface to manage the units is a great asset and one that makes managing storage easy.

User-friendly GUI

Exceptionally fast and well-managed replication
Low latency

Hybrid storage gives you the ability to assign different roles to different types of storage arrays inside one enclosure

Both file-level and block-level replication

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the HPE 3PAR StoreServ solution.

A SAN Consultant at a tech services company says, “One of the features that I like the most is the data replication element. The reason I like it is due to the fact that it's pretty clean on replicating data over to a second site. The product stands on its own in heavy enterprise environments. It's easy to make changes without affecting the environment. The solution is very easy to use. The product is very robust and offers very good performance.”

A Storage Manager at a financial services firm mentions, "There are a lot of screens for easy management where you can change some settings. But after a few years, the important settings were better after an upgrade, and all the vendors have other ways to upgrade their systems."

A Senior IT Infrastructure & Data Center Operation Engineer at Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) comments, “The adaptive optimization is the biggest feature in 3PAR. 3PAR is very usable with thin volume because it detects zeros while writing. Every time I tell the hypervisor to make the full provisioning, it makes the volume as simple provisioning in 3PAR, not full provisioning.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE introduces HPE Primera, a new storage platform designed to deliver superior simplicity, availability, and performance for mission-critical applications
HPE Primera advances the HPE Intelligent Data Platform, a portfolio of products and solutions designed to help customers transition from delivering storage to unlocking business value with intelligent data

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera

April 2025

Free Report: HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. HPE Primera and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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