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HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs VNX [EOL] comparison

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
302
Ranking in other categories
NAS (6th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd), All-Flash Storage (9th)
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
Jul 31, 2018
 

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.
RS
​The VNX 5700 provides a large number of features including the ability to work for both file and block as a unified array.
Once you establish a replication job, when the file system is synchronizing its data to the target file system, it tends to create a balloon effect where it creates a file system that grows as the new data is synchronizing. It would be very helpful if the replication job could incorporate a self-cleaning job after the synchronization job completes to reduce the size of the file system in the target automatically. Very often, we have to run a script called “SavVolReclaim” to clean up space consumed while the replication is in progress. If the replication job hits its maximum capacity of 16TB while synchronizing, it stops the replication job. By adding this reclaim process natively, it would eliminate additional unnecessary work for the storage administrators. 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.

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 features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"If you design it right and implement it right, it's headache free. Just keep it there and it does what it's suppose to do."
"The performance has been fantastic. It has not had many issues whatsoever, and what issues they do have, the support picks up on it quickly. They send us tickets saying that they are doing work without us even having to engage them."
"Our applications are now at least two to four times faster."
"It is worry-free. I do not have to sit there and tend it."
"The tech support is great. If we have a problem, we literally will have boots on the ground with senior sales people, as well as the people to fix the problem, to help make sure we are taken care of."
"If it runs, and you don't know about it, that is the best thing that you can have in IT infrastructure. This is what 3PAR does for us."
"I am a system integrator, so we sell a lot of 3PAR storage to our customers. Our business has increased compared to previous days."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ is easy to use and has good performance."
"One of the best features of the VNX is the ability to combine drives of different types into a virtual Storage Pool. By combining small but fast flash drives, SAS drives, and high-capacity but slower NL-SAS drives, the VNX can intelligently move data to the different tiers of storage based on usage."
"It is very stable, even during multiple power failures."
"High availability including non-disruptive updates: We cannot afford downtime windows."
"It is very stable even during multiple power failures."
"The most valuable feature is the auto-tiering, which helps in the speed of data access."
"Multi-tiering, positively affects the efficiency of the storage space."
"The implementation of both block and file system storage in a single GUI provides is better situated than most other storages."
"Good performance for VM environments"
 

Cons

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"I would like to see a little bit more integration from a cloud perspective. In this way, I would have some more flexibility to do more with data, how to store it, and where I have it."
"During the initial setup, it was a bit complex in the wiring of the cages."
"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."
"Setting up 3PAR is somewhat complicated, and it took about a week."
"As a management tool, it would help us to have more customer reports."
"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."
"I would like to have support for On-The-fly reallocation Data when using VVoL."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ could have better integration into the cloud and converged infrastructure."
"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."
"There is an easy replication process between distinct data centers via VPLEX and/or RPA. But I hope in the future that EMC/Dell could replicate this with other types of storage."
"Based on our workloads, we see repeatedly in performance reports that the built-in controller (SP) cache of our VNX model is not sufficiently large, resulting in forced cache flushing."
"There is no easy way to defrag a RAID group. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of a storage pool if the storage is not needed anymore."
"Poor connection to FC."
"VNX can improve by offering flexible upgrade options. It's not possible to add a single HDD to a current array and there are fixed rules to make upgrades."
"EMC VNX needs to support bigger SSDs. Next generation EMC Unity will do this."
"The CLI could be better documented, like with VMAX."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"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."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"The total cost of ownership really is worth every penny."
"This solution is expensive. We pay every year for support. It's a lump sum because we pay for data center support services, and everything is included in one."
"It's a good price."
"The solution has two parts: software and hardware, and you need to buy licenses for some features."
"The licensing fee is not cheap."
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten. It is expensive."
"We purchased the solution as CapEx and we only pay support now. I find the pricing fantastic."
"This product is quite expensive and in addition, we subscribe to 24/7 support with a four-hour response time."
"​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."
"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."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable. Yearly EMC is more expensive."
"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."
"The initial pricing and licensing are reasonable, the yearly EMC is more expensive"
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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

Julia Miller - PeerSpot reviewer
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
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
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
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
87%
Computer Software Company
2%
Financial Services Firm
1%
Manufacturing Company
1%
No data available
 

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 ...
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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
VNX
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Just Energy, Latisys, team AG, DreamWorks, BlueShore Financial, Erasmus MC
Samsonite, Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Kindred Healthcare
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