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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
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
NAS (8th), 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.
CO
Information Systems & Security Administrator at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Ease of use in data center boosts resilience and infrastructure efficiency
I find the HPE 3PAR StoreServ valuable for its ease of use and resilience, which is beneficial. The main benefits I have seen from having HPE 3PAR StoreServ include its use at a small branch I managed for about three years with around 60 users. It operates effectively because it is an HPE product we use there. I have not experienced any significant issues besides occasional IT-related ones, such as local database problems. Since handing over the administration of the system to someone else and moving to another department, there have not been any issues. There are many features that exist but I haven't needed to try. Before moving out of that role in my organization, I knew it was a product I enjoyed working with for infrastructure purposes. After completing my new role, I intend to return to infrastructure.
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

"When users don't call wanting to kill me, that's ROI."
"Once it's set up, it just runs on its own and only requires the occasional checkup."
"The performance levels and the storage have improved my organization because we're a 95% virtualized environment and we're able to allocate resources as needed and manage our whole infrastructure that way."
"It's extremely stable and has good performance."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use and support."
"The support has been very good from Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The most valuable features in Pure Storage FlashArray are deduplication and active cluster."
"The ease of management is one of the most valuable features of this solution. I would have also said that it's pretty fast but now our SQL servers are starting to beat it up pretty bad."
"It provides ​very fast deployment. The performance for our most critical applications is very quick."
"The Call Home feature is really a great feature, so I do not need to monitor the 3PAR. The 3PAR team is monitoring it and letting me know if there are any problems."
"3PAR is great."
"StoreServ is good storage, which needs to get implemented alongside other products to allow it to be utilized in the way it's supposed to be - especially in a private cloud environment."
"Stability has been the greatest benefit of the solution."
"We have had it for three years and we haven't had one hiccup."
"The most valuable features for us are the performance and efficiency."
"We have zero downtime with 3PAR, which saves us a lot of money as the business stays up and running."
"It would be a good choice for midrange businesses due to the performance/features and cost."
"Technical support is good."
"I really value deduplication and compression to save space."
"Since implementing VNX, we achieved a 10 times increase in the performance for its end users."
"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."
"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."
"The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array."
"It’s amazing, you can add and stack, and add more elements."
 

Cons

"Pure Storage will have issues with positioning in the near future since it's a relatively new company."
"It goes at about 95 percent, so we have had some performance issues. It is hard to clear them."
"We haven't seen ROI."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"Regarding documentation, it would be helpful if we could have access to the root passwords for administrative tasks."
"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."
"Once, before Pure went public, we were a member of their customer advisory board and beta tested replication. One requested enhancement yet to manifest is the scheduling of snapshot replications."
"The initial setup was a little complex. We had some initial issues with the design and had to help correct some of the white papers for it, but it wasn't your standard use case."
"We had an accident where when we turned on deduplication and we had it active for some of the virtual volumes that we had in our environment, it did actually cause a problem that HP had not heard of previously and had not yet documented that was fixed in a release 2 weeks later, and a software patch 2 weeks later."
"We have a bad track record on the 3PAR system."
"Generally, the management of the multiple systems that we have is really the only problem, always having to go to all these separate tools to manage everything."
"There are issues formulating the upgraded disk."
"We have had issues in the past, I'm not going to lie."
"The main problem for 3PAR​ right now is cost.​"
"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."
"The tool is old."
"EMC wasn't able to fix the issue, so they had to stop using snapshots."
"The CLI could be better documented, like with VMAX."
"There were scalability issues, the scalability options are limited due to supported SSD."
"It would be very helpful to get an automated report that shows you the size of the checkpoints and get warnings when a checkpoint is reaching either maximum capacity per a file system or hitting the ceiling on the SavVol pool consumption."
"The management software used for the VNX is Unicenter. While it is an improvement over Navicenter, used in older EMC SANs, it still feels outdated in comparison to other SAN management software."
"EMC products are costly when compared to other vendors such HP, Hitachi, Dell, and NetApp."
"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
"You need a lot of licenses in order to use this product, which makes the product expensive; the maintenance contract price also increases significantly every year."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"We have 16 or 18 arrays. We like to do the three-year support model so that we get Evergreen and therefore, we get free upgrades. We pay around more than 1.5 million dollars."
"Pure Storage FlashArray's pricing is very competitive."
"The price of the solution is not expensive."
"We do not incur additional costs beyond the licensing fee."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"FlashArray is expensive, but the quality justifies the price."
"Our costs are around $100,000."
"There was a one-time cost when we procured this product and there are no monthly or yearly licensing fees."
"You can't get software maintenance from a third party. You have to do it from HPE, which is a letdown."
"The total cost of ownership really is worth every penny."
"It is quite difficult to decide on the cost. At one point, I was the project lead to cover with some people, but the price was important and we had its compression calculated. At that moment, it was fair because that was one of the things moving their product due to the cost of HPE 3PAR StoreServ as they were competing with Hitachi and IBM A9000, which I'm not sure if is still available."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"Cost-wise, it is a little bit on the higher side, but it is an awesome product."
"It is fairly inexpensive to scale."
"We purchased the solution as CapEx and we only pay support now. I find the pricing fantastic."
"Over time, VNX has become pricier than its competitors, and we have turned enthusiastically to Unity."
"Pricing is somewhat higher, especially in Zambia, perhaps due to the low sales volume."
"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.​"
"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"
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
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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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise151
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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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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