HPE 3PAR StoreServ Reviews

It is for the storage that we use. Our entire banking system is on it, which is mission-critical.

It has provided us our solution for VDIs, so it has been working very well.

Any infrastructure is an enabler that provides services for the applications that you run.

The ability to have a solid state and deduplication on that solid state.

The deduplication functionality is great. We have seen a lot of benefits in the deduplication ratio. So, it has proven that it is a good cost savings.

It is easy to manage and performs very well.

There is always the case where there are the little things that bother you, but you live with them.

There are features that we would like to deep dive into more, but that is where the consultants would come in and help.

We are using Synergy, so it is the next evolution of blades, which has been great. We have had no complaints, except for the problem with the Spectre vulnerability.

The scalability is great, because if we need to, we can just turn on a blade and start paying for it. Also, if we want, we can shut it down, and the next month, we don't pay.

The technical support is good. We haven't had any major issues where we have had to call them, as of late, so it has been fairly good. They help us when we do our upgrades, but that has been going well.

At the time, we needed a better solution than our previous solution (Dell EMC) for storage, so we looked to HPE.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We been setting up 3PARs for 10 years now. It is like second nature for us.

The straightforward setup also applies to experiences with Synergy and Flex Capacity.

We mostly deployed it ourselves. We also had help from HPE, because we purchased directly from them. Our experience with HPE was great. This is the case when they give you how to get everything going, but it would be nice if they could go a little deeper sometimes. That is always the case: To get the value-add, you have to pay for those services.

We have seen ROI.

We did not look at other vendors beside HPE. We were one of the first adopters of 3PAR. We had one of the old T800s. We were early in the adoption of HP 3PAR.

Management made a decision to go with 3PAR, because HPE came and made it appealing.

It is a great solution. There are others out there, but we have always been using 3PAR. We are pretty happy with it.

We are using the GreenLake Flex Capacity offering. At first, the service was great, because we had a configuration that was meeting our needs. However, when the issue came with Spectre, and then the L1TF vulnerability came out, those really affected us, so hopefully we will find a solution that meets our needs going forward. That is what we are looking at now.

We just started getting into InfoSight predictive analytics. It is something that I want to explore more, and something that I want to get going.

I can say that, "All-flash is the way that the future will be."

It is storage for our SAP environment. SAP is the mission-critical application that we run on the solution.

The snapshotting capability allows us to do a database replication very quickly. As a result, we have some applications which need a fresh copy of the production database everyday, and we are able to give that to them by eight o'clock in the morning.

Its snapshot capability is the most valuable feature, because replicate our databases from production to nonproduction for development. This allows us to do it very quickly.

The deduplication is pretty impressive because it will shrink. We also do some clones in addition to the snapshots, where we can have multiple clones. These reduce the actual written storage by as much as 50 percent.

It has latency issues.

It seems pretty stable. Once we got over the birthing pains, it has been pretty reliable.

As long as the array is not full, it is available. We filled it up.

It is very scalable. We can grow it up to the size that it will contain. Then, we have to move to another array, a bigger one, if we have to. However, my understanding is that is a pretty seamless process.

We moved to 3PAR from a different array, which was a smaller array with fewer controller cards in it. So, 3PAR did not increase our performance, and it has increased our latency by at least double.

We went with 3PAR because we have HP-UX systems. Since we already knew HP-UX, they offered us a significantly cheaper solution than the one that we had for storage.

The first array that they sent us was in some type of a factory mode. We didn't find that out until we loaded a bunch of data onto it, then we had to back it all off. We had to replace the array, which was sort of painful.

We are actually a federal customer, so we get the HPE Federal direct team helping us. Our experience was good, except for that one problem with the first array.

We evaluated Dell EMC, HPE, and some other competitors. We went with HPE because of the price point.

The biggest lesson that I learned from using 3PAR is the snapshot capability.

We provide DoD services for military healthcare. The storage is used for healthcare delivery.

It allows us to cohost as needed. We are able to put more systems on one data storage system and it is still able to deliver the availability and speed that we need it to deliver.

All-flash also positions us for growth. We can look to simplify things while still maintaining the reliability and speed that we need to deliver quality healthcare.

In addition, it has increased our performance and it has improved our throughput. The latter improvement means that we're able to ensure that the users can get to their data as quickly as they need it, and that it responds to any queries that they have. It's able to meet their daily needs.

• The reliability - the solution's availability is really good
• The amount of storage that you can have on a system
• The speed

We've started to see an issue with the older models that we have. We've had issues where facilities would have unscheduled power outages or scheduled power outages and the 3PARs weren't able to come up successfully. We actually had an incident recently where it wiped data that we didn't anticipate would be wiped.

We will be having sidebar conversations with them later today, here at HPE Discover 2019, to talk about some of the possibilities that we're looking at.

Going forward, we're looking for bigger capacity and drives, which I know they're looking at. We want them to ensure the speed and reliability because keeping those systems up and running, 24/7, is important to us.

The stability and scalability of the solution are great. They're among the reasons that we selected this product.

Technical support has always been great. We have to be available 24/7, 365, and for what we've needed, they've always provided really great support.

We've had a long-standing working relationship with HPE. They're a trusted solution, so we've continued working with them.

We deployed it ourselves, although we had HPE come in and give us some guidance and then they were available by phone. We worked together but it was pretty easy to do. The HPE consultants have been great. Whenever we've needed assistance, they've been available and able to provide us with the assistance that we need.

The fact that it's able to provide the speed and the reliability that we need means fewer outages for the hospital. That means less back-filling the data so it's worth the money that they're spending.

We have looked at other vendors but a lot of them couldn't handle the capacity or the speed or the reliability that we needed.

It's a great product. Their support is great. We even have the ability to have loaner products provided to us as an option. We can have the products come inside and test and use them before we make our final decision. That helps with the analysis and recommendation process, so it's been a great partnership with HPE.

We haven't really had any significant issues. So other than that it's able to provide what we need and that the customer service is great, we haven't learned any big lessons from using it.

We don't use too much deduplication, but from what we've seen so far, it seems to execute what we need it to execute.

Once we get this issue that we've had recently resolved then I would say it's a ten out of ten. We haven't had any real issues with it.

We use it for the production and backup environments. We use it for a service that we deliver directly in our data center for our customers. It's a live environment, directly for the customers.

The stability is what we consider to be the best feature it provides. The stability of this solution is what conquers us, every day.

The deduplication is pretty good too. It does the work.

Upgrades could be improved. We would like to see more upgrades.

We have already had situations where we had to optimize and put more space on the storage. It has been very simple to get done. We are happy with what we have in place.

Technical support is pretty good. We always have somebody available to support us. We do have a maintenance contract with third-party vendors for HPE but we've been attended to very well in this field.

It was the first solution that we defined, at the beginning of the data center, so it has always been there. Since I joined the team after the data center was already implemented, I don't have a previous scenario to compare it to, what it has improved or not.

The setup was straightforward, because of the partnership that we maintain with Logicalis. They supported us during the whole deployment.

We used a company named Logicalis. They are our partners for everything that we have. Any doubt that we have or any challenges that we face, they are our port of call. We have had a good experience with them.

We are happy with what we have in place. You should consider getting this solution if you are in the process of acquiring or switching. I would suggest giving this a good look.

The biggest lesson we have learned from using the solution is the stability. This is what I always tell people. The stability is what surprises us. It's a stable solution.

In terms of growth, we are planning on going from 35 terabytes to around 50 terabytes in the six months. We will probably keep using 3PAR but we may change to something better. We are here at HPE Discover 2019 looking for other solutions. If we cannot find something better we will continue using the same technology, the 3PAR.

I would rate 3PAR at eight out of ten because we love the stability but sometimes we still lack upgrades for the solution.

We use three power arrays. The first array is for video storage and video surveillance. The second array is for production of our virtual machines. Pretty much everything is run on one of these three systems.

It provides us some disaster recovery capabilities. The all-flash storage gives us the performance that we need.

The remote copy group failover is very useful and has helped us.

We use InfoSight predictive analytics. The most useful part of it is being able to see the growth curve.

• The uptime
• Its reliability, that day in day out, it will continue to be running.

The solution's availability is very good.

I would like to have single click upgrades because the process is cumbersome right now. The upgrade process is very tedious. It takes a lot of time and effort, in addition to coordination with HPE. We are looking for something which is more user-friendly and easy to deploy. Fixing the upgrade process is very critical.

The stability of the solution is very good.

The scalability is alright. When we try to scale it, we do upgrades.

The all-flash positions our organization for growth. If somebody comes to us who needs an application with performance, we have that already formulated.

The technical support is good. We work with a local vendor.

Our previous solution was between five to six years old, so we were looking for something newer, like all-flash.

The initial setup was complex, but we had the partner there to help.

We used a partner for the deployment, and our experience with them was good.

The solution has increased our performance.

The solution helped our organization reduce our time to deployment.

I would recommend looking at Nimble instead. It is a similar option and something that we are looking at now, though 3PAR has been a pretty solid product.

The solution’s deduplication functionality is alright.

It is our primary storage for all of our data. Everything from personnel systems to file shares, print services, and databases are mission-critical applications that we run on 3PAR.

It has allowed us to set up a fully functioning disaster recovery site with replication, which we have been able to configure between our 3PAR systems.

The solution has helped improved our throughput. It has helped our organization with our DR site and connections to our blade systems.

The replication that you can set up between remote 3PARs is its most valuable feature.

I would rate it a ten (out of ten) for its ease of use. We haven't had any issues when we have had to build anything out on it. There have been no major issues, as far as outages or hardware issues.

The GUI was a little hard to figure out how to use.

The stability has been great and solid, so far. We haven't had any hiccups or any major outages.

The scalability is very good. We are planning on adding another rack of hard drives.

The technical support was very knowledgeable when we first set it up. Outside of that, I haven't really had any experience with them.

We had an old HPE SAN. We compared one 3PAR to the SAN. Then, we wanted to set up replication between our DR sites, so we purchased another 3PAR.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used a reseller for the deployment.

The solution has helped our organization reduce time to deployment.

Our organization issued us an HPE 3PAR. There really wasn't any market research with other vendors.

It is a solid product. It works really well for our situation and what we need at a disaster recovery site. It is fairly simple to set up.

We do not use InfoSight.

We use this solution for low latency, high-performance workloads.

This solution has given us improved application uptime and performance.

The most valuable features are Dedupe, Compression, and the simplicity of SSMC (StoreServ Management Console).

We would like to see dedupe and compression allowed on all drive types.

Our primary cases for HPE 3PAR Flash Storage 7000 are: 

• Transport sector
• Four nodes, 1000 virtual machines
• Entire rack solution
• Partially flash
• 350TB (dense IO).

The bad news: In its initial firmware, both four-node clusters were locked down. The downtime was 17hrs, and once patched, it worked like a charm — no outage for two years. Whereas, IBM SVC had three outages (node crashes) with impact in the 2 yrs before

• Four-node performance
• No split IO groups as on IBM SVC clusters.
• Easy tiering (with a small % of cache) did a good job in a large scale environment of 1000 VMs on 350TB external Monitoring, giving a detailed dashboard. A nicely virtual appliance for remote callout support to HPE services.

• Made on three times a price comparison, and only on one occurrence, the largest enterprise infrastructure of all three was HPE able to compete with its competitors.
• It's way too expensive for the SMB market.
• HPE care packs like datacenter/enterprise provide highly automated reports and reviews.
• I liked the periodic SAN performance reviews which are highly detailed reports in about 100 pages and provide recommendations and a final score. However, the price is outrageous!