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HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs NetApp AFF 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)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
302
Ranking in other categories
NAS (6th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd)
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
311
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

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 HPE 3PAR StoreServ is 3.0%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 9.3%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Q&A Highlights

Jan 28, 2016
 

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.
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.
Anna Sofo - PeerSpot reviewer
Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency
I like NetApp AFF's deduplication. The solution's AutoSupport feature is efficient and effective because customers are notified of potential issues before they experience problems with NetApp. The support is sold based on metro clusters, so they guarantee the client's business continuity. NetApp has an Active IQ app that allows you to get information on your smartphone.

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 database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"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."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"We went to an Active-Active data center, set it up to where both data centers are separate, but they act as one. We can have workloads at either side at any given time, and it is all based on the Peer Persistence architecture."
"So far, we have yet to have a disk fail on either system, other than one I forced to fail when we first got the system in. So the reliability of the 3PAR system has been outstanding."
"It has helped a lot for times when our customers do DR testing. Instead of having to spin down and spin up, I can do it live and seamless. I do not have to schedule downtime with an organization."
"With the support that our organization has, I can talk to someone right away if I have an issue. It has been very good."
"It is a rugged, performance system; it is trouble-free and a workhorse."
"Its performance is good. We have a lot of applications that have high I/O, and 3PAR handles those with no problem."
"I must say the uninterrupted upgrades of 3PAR, the OS, and its RAID-type system are must-have features."
"Since it's being used to support a virtual infrastructure, that gives us access to all of the benefits of a virtual infrastructure. So, instead of spending hours trying to rebuild or to fix a broken server, we can instead wipe it out and throw up a new one and we're up and running again."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and level of technical support."
"Speed. it's very performance designed. It's designed to have a lot of high speed."
"It is easy to manage data through the GUI by using Active IQ and the unified manager."
"This solution has reduced our data center costs because when we went from the 8000 and 3200 series that took us from 20 racks of storage down to two."
"The newest version of ONTAP has a bit of a learning curve because you need to learn where things are to find them. It is not impossible, but when you are accustomed to the older version of ONTAP, it just takes a bit getting used to it, but it is about the same as before."
"We are spending less time putting out fires, so there's a tangible benefit right there."
"It is user-friendly. Everybody can use it, not just the technical people."
"NetApp solutions are easy to maintain and upgrade."
 

Cons

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"The software layer has to improve."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"The new feature sets, like deduplication and compression, are complex to work with. I hope when I view the roadmap that they will be less complex."
"I would like to have support for On-The-fly reallocation Data when using VVoL."
"The setup was complex from the perspective of the employees having to go through five days of training. If they simplified the administrative process of maintaining the unit, that would go a long way."
"We need longer names for our volumes. Now it's only 28 characters. It should be 64, or at least more than 32 characters."
"As long as they can keep the solution stable, it will be good. Stability is very important to us."
"3PAR needs to keep on increasing its capacity."
"I would like to see NVMe support, not only on the disk side, but also in the NVMe over Fibre Channel."
"I give it an eight because of the support, that I can't get support in my country. This is the worst part. Support cannot be sold until we are out of the sanctions."
"The stability is good but there is room for improvement with other options."
"The upgrade process could be a lot quicker, but it's still good as it is. The failovers and things like that are harder than expected."
"They should make these features a little more affordable."
"Their backup software could be improved."
"To enhance the already excellent administration, one area for potential improvement could be in terms of integration."
"It would be helpful if the compatibility matrix was a bit better."
"I honestly don't have anything of note on how they can improve."
"We had a lot of issues with two-factor authentication using, for example, Okta."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"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."
"Take advantage of what HPE offers as far as professional services, and this will help you make the right decision."
"It is a little more money, but it is worth it because it does it better."
"We do not have any licensing fees."
"It's very reliable and it was cost competitive with other arrays at the time that we purchased it."
"If HPE reduced the price of 3PAR StoreServ they would be more attractive to mid-range companies."
"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."
"The price of HPE 3PAR StoreServ is reasonable, but buying upgrade licenses are priced very high. There are additional fees."
"The pricing is good."
"Using NetApp, our total cost of ownership decreased by 17%."
"Disk level encryption is already in the solution, but it is very costly. Its pricing should come down."
"When we bought NetApp, it was very reasonably priced. When you factor in the time savings, it's highly cost-effective."
"We have been able to utilize and leverage equipment which was purchased a decade ago up until this past year. So, we were running disk shells for 13 years and all we were doing was upgrading the filings and controllers, and using the same disk shells. Therefore, we were able to do something where we didn't have to invest that much. Recently, we had to upgrade all our disk shells, but it was a lot less because the technology had changed a lot since those times. It is faster now, and we have SSDs. We have larger drives that are 4TBs and 6TBs. Everything can condense so we are saving disk shell space and rack space. We are paying less now than we did at that time"
"I understand the cost is less than many other storages of same/similar performance benchmark."
"Our TCO has increased by 15 to 18 percent."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016
The best honest answer really anyone can give is that it depends. Pricing in and of itself has so many variables including the nature of the deal, the technical need (what I'm sure you're after), and quite honestly the competition. These factors all come into play. My advise is that my Solutions Architect who is an SME in both of these brands has already commented on this blog and I'm ...
2 out of 47 answers
Jan 22, 2016
…I am confused – data protection is built in with the implementation of RAID 5+3 and the backups will be down to their current chosen backup strategy?!
it_user331356 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 22, 2016
Hello Ariel, I don't have practical experience with NetApp AFF 8020 so I can tell you only the same thing what you can find on the Internet. Sorry. Best Regards Best Regards Milos Kurtes, System Administrator, Alison Parkmore Technology Park, Galway, EIRCODE: H91 E309, Ireland www.alison.com Free Online Interactive Skills Training & Certification Full Course List [image: ALISON Small Logo]
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
85%
Computer Software Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
2%
Manufacturing Company
1%
Educational Organization
69%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

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'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 ...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...
 

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
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.