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HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL] comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
NAS (7th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd), All-Flash Storage (11th)
VNX [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Q&A Highlights

Julia Miller - PeerSpot reviewer
Community Director at PeerSpot
Jul 31, 2018
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
Muhammad Saqib - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AZ
Works at AIT
The Nimble CS-Series has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime
When we started the process of looking for a SAN vendor I had four primary criteria: reliability, performance, cost, and simplicity. We were really looking for a unicorn and were fully expected to have to make compromises in one of those areas. The Nimble CS-Series was recommended by our solutions provider, and we were blown away. Not only was it the most affordable option, but it was the easiest to deploy, had the best performance, and has proven to be reliable with 100% uptime.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is it never goes down. We can expand and create volumes."
"You can even review the devices from your phone. You don't need to be connected to your company's website or VPN to access alerts and reports. While you can't manage the devices using your phone, you can review all the important details about the machine."
"The speed is the most valuable feature, along with the ease of getting it connected. We were able to get it online in less than a day."
"The biggest return on investment for us is not having to do a swap out of the arrays every five years."
"Data reduction and compression. Sub millisecond latency."
"It's reduced our overhead management time on storage, since it is so simple to get in and just provision a volume, present it to the host, and then you are done."
"It worked flawlessly."
"Very stable; no worries about how much it can handle."
"It helps our core applications run very fast, increasing overall performance by about 60 percent, with one process going from taking seven hours to taking one hour, making it a key for storage in our organization."
"It was straightforward, simple, and easy to set up, along with the OneView tools, for managing both compute and storage."
"In general, it’s been such a good fit for us, as it's fast, easy, and flexible."
"We have already seen ROI; we have had it in the environment for about three months and it has been absolutely tremendous, workloads have improved in performance, we do not have a lot of the same struggles that we used to, it is stable, it does what it's supposed to, and you can feed it compute and storage as you need to."
"It is a stable solution."
"The command line is very extensive, a lot of tools so in comparison to other vendors. It's one of the great things about 3PAR, that you can really drill down on performance, get statistics, really know how your system is internally performing."
"The biggest benefit is the fact that it's pretty much bulletproof; we never have any issues with them."
"Scalability is the most valuable feature for us."
"It would be a good choice for midrange businesses due to the performance/features and cost."
"Depending on how simple the customer needs it to be, might sway my recommendation one way or the other, but in terms of functionality, VNX is very very good."
"In a banking environment, on which we required a very high throughput for our database, we have used this product and our desired response was received."
"From my point of view, the configuration that I can sell is restricted to the EMC best practices. It is hard to make a mistake in a solution. It means the configuration has good performance and scalability options."
"The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array."
"I have worked on CLARiiON and all series of VNX."
"The most valuable feature is the tight VMware integration, due to the migration from bare metal to virtualized environments and then on to the cloud."
"EMC storage has the best performance and functions."
 

Cons

"I had to contact customer support when a drive failed as I was doing a couple of OS upgrades."
"The number of Filesystems is limited, which it is not on the EMC VNX."
"From a scalability perspective, it is a very small storage solution, so it's not very expandable."
"Some services could be inserted directly into the SAN, so Pure Storage could complete with the HyperFlex."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliability and features are commendable."
"The cost of the storage needs improvement."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting on the data. However, it would be nice to know what are the exact VMs usage after deduplication and/or what that VMs actual latency and bandwidth is, outside of VMware."
"Firmware stability could be improved."
"We had issues with HPE support, trying to work through that whole dedup issue; it was long and drawn out."
"The solution could be improved in regard to space reclamation by adding automation."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ has limited flexibility in building replication solutions. There are limitations to the number of IOPS the system can do. It's not bad as it is doing its job. However, for the application, if you need a toolbox, you can build everything concerning periodic replication modes of synchronous or asynchronous three-site, four-site, with supported cascading which requires you to buy an IBM product. It also takes a few hours to one day to upgrade the system and sometimes; it takes more time because, in some HPE 3PAR StoreServ 20000 Storage, you have an eight-node system. If you do an upgrade, you do it node by node and every node might take more than an hour."
"We've got some issues at the moment on scalability. We need to grow our data quite significantly."
"I would like to see more fast storage and more inside support."
"I'd really it to be able to interact with older 3PAR storage, and possibly even non-HPE. I would like to be able to pull stuff off of old things and bring it up to the standard that has been set, simply, quickly, and efficiently. That would be a really nice feature. Right now it is a big pain. It seems to work but we tend to get some latency behind."
"There were a few goofy things with support where we were trying to do OS upgrades and HPE MyRoom failed. However, they would not get on WebEx because they are only allowed to get on HPE MyRoom."
"EMC VNX needs to support bigger SSDs. Next generation EMC Unity will do this."
"The performance impact snapshotting had on the cluster was enormous. The entire cluster performance took a performance impact of about 30% as soon as we created one snapshot of all the volumes created on the cluster."
"HP EVA and once NetApp, but they both had slow performance and a lack of features so we switched."
"Customer Service: I don't like the way EMC's Powerlink support is behind a wall."
"I do not recommend the Gen 1 VNX to anyone in this day and age."
"VNX can improve by offering flexible upgrade options."
"The scalability is average because the storage has some hardware limitations and, obviously, operating system limitations."
"With this product, the licensing software and capacity are very expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have seen a reduction in TCO."
"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"We have seen a reduction in the TCO, because Pure Storage is partnering with Belfrics. This partnership reduces our latency and space."
"In terms of other contemporary arrays, Pure is something you need to have a use case for, as it's not priced for you to buy one off-the-shelf. If you have a use case, heavy lift Oracle Databases, any type of noticeable virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), or need low latency and high throughput, you should consider all-flash at least and probably Pure Storage."
"It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
"The support for the solution is free for three years, then it is an additional cost. It is approximately $30,000 annually. The price includes a lot of equipment we have not only HPE 3PAR StoreServ."
"We do not have any licensing fees."
"It is a little more money, but it is worth it because it does it better."
"Budget wise, 3PAR is a lot of money compared to other solutions, but what is in the 3PAR integration that customers are getting now from the Nimble and InfoSight acquisitions, it is worthwhile."
"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."
"You need to properly assess your needs before buying the solution since there are chances of overpaying. The type of configuration that you choose can make the price go higher or lower."
"Its price is a bit high for adding another tree, but when we purchased it, it was okay with us. We had compared it with EMC and other solutions, and it was okay at that point in time. Our storage has a lifespan of seven to eight years. When you purchase it, you need to keep a headroom of around 40% to 50%. After three to four years, you generally plan for an upgrade. The price is not so bad today for two years or so, and within a year, I might find that I have to upgrade or increase the storage. This usually happens when there is a radical change or a new application has come that is consuming a lot of data, but generally, there is a plan for the amount of data that we generate and the storage upgrade."
"We purchased the total package for approximately $60,000."
"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."
"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
"While EMC tends to be on the expensive side, the stability and support of their products are top-notch and I feel are worth the cost."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"
"Make sure you understand how the licensing works and that you are getting the right set of licenses if you need array-to-array replication."
"​Reducing dependency on JavaServer Pages​ (JSP) could improve the administrative overhead.​"
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

Julia Miller - PeerSpot reviewer
Community Director at PeerSpot
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018
Pros EMC VNX Multi-tiering positively affects the efficiency of the storage space. The replication feature provides another functionality to protect your data. The implementation of both block and file system storage in a single GUI provides is better situated than most other storages. From my point of view, the configuration that I can sell is restricted to the EMC best practices. It is ha...
2 out of 19 answers
reviewer325866 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder and General Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
May 29, 2018
As far as I know, VNX line is no longer available, therefore I think that the real comparison has to be with the Dell EMC Unity family systems
it_user551106 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Solution Architect - HPE MASE - Storage with 5,001-10,000 employees
May 29, 2018
One user says about HPE 3PAR, "The optimization features move chunklets or hot spots to faster drives." The moving of Chunklets is to maintain performance. What kind of CPG or level of protection you choose for 3PAR volumes will determine your availability and protection level? Although Chunklets can be moved to higher levels of protection, that is not the stated purpose above. Another user says about EMC VNX, "The replication feature provides another functionality to protect your data." The replication feature mentioned is for protection and not performance. VNX performance can be enhanced by FAST Cache. Availability is determined by the Virtual Provisioning of the VNX and by choosing a Storage Pool in which the proper RAID level is chosen.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise74
Large Enterprise170
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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?
As a customer, I always prefer to have a lower price. Any customer will always ask for the cheaper price.
What needs improvement with HPE 3PAR StoreServ?
I have no specific ideas for improvement at present. We just need to verify whether our current virtual server setup ...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
HPE 3PAR Flash Storage, InServ, Storeserv, 3PAR Flash Storage, HP Enterprise Storage, 3PAR Flash Array, HP 3PAR Flash Storage
VNX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare
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