HPE 3PAR StoreServ Reviews and Pricing

it_user187086

Associate Infrastructure Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 28, 2015

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The 3PAR build-in reporting features were the answer to all our reporting woes; Customer support is a perfect 10.

Pros and Cons

"When compared with the 3PAR, there has been huge cost savings which resulted in the ROI being achieved."

What is most valuable?

The reporting features on the 3PAR are one of the most valuable features in a flexible and intuitive web-based tool.

How has it helped my organization?

Reporting has always been a challenge for our company. Add-on tools for reporting purposes are often expensive and require additional configuration. The 3PAR build in reporting features were the answer to all our reporting woes. We are now able to report as often as we would like, including automated report generating.

What needs improvement?

Storage migration features. Comparing the 3PAR to IBM’s SVC, storage migration could be much easier to perform if there are lessons to be learned from IBM’s brilliant product.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this product for the past 2-3 years at various clients including various models of the 3PAR.

Buyer's Guide

HPE 3PAR StoreServ

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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered. An HP 3PAR business partner performs the implementation with 24x7 support from HP.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered. The product performs as advertised.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

One of the key features of the HP 3PAR storage array is the ability to scale and the ease by which this can be achieved.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

Customer service would get a solid 9. 24x7 support is available however this might vary depending on geographic location. Best to check support with the local HP offices or local business partner.

Technical Support:

Customer support would be a perfect 10. The technical support staff are VERY knowledgeable and another key feature would be the call-home feature which comes with a 3PAR.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes. The cost of scaling up was far too high. When compared with the 3PAR, there has been huge cost savings which resulted in the ROI being achieved.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. HP’s business partner assisted with the installation and were able to get the 3PAR up and running in very short timelines.

What about the implementation team?

The vendor team (business partner) would get a perfect 10. Their expertise showcased their commitment to brilliant customer service.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered an EMC VNX as well as an IBM XIV.

What other advice do I have?

The product is definitely worth considering. As mentioned before, onsite support might be limited due to geographic location (only if you live in a very remote part of the planet) but generally the product satisfies most if not all business requirements. We are hoping to implement Flash storage. Flash storage is becoming more cost effective and the performance benefits are well documented when using flash storage.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user107568Works at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

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Feb 20, 2015

I've said this in other comments but didn't want folks to miss that HP 3PAR All-Flash won the All-Flash Product of the Year Award from TechTarget. I have a blog that talks about it. hpstorage.me/19Cw9a8

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it_user183474

Senior System Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 28, 2015

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SSD, SAS and SATA disks in one box. Transparent failover between datacenters, delivers performance as promised.

Pros and Cons

"SSD, SAS and SATA disks in one box, transparent failover between datacenters, delivers performance as promised."

"Small bugs in the GUI that were resolved in the latest version."

What is most valuable?

SSD, SAS and SATA disks in one box, transparent failover between datacenters, delivers performance as promised.

How has it helped my organization?

Less data is stored in silos, more is kept in this central solution with advantages of raid, tiering and backup. We are looking into Flash, we already own some violin boxes and have a small capacitiy of SSD disks in the 3PAR.

What needs improvement?

Monitoring and reporting.

For how long have I used the solution?

6 months, it’s predecessor HP 3PAR T400 for 6 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Small bugs in the GUI that were resolved in the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

9/10.

Technical Support:

9/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No, we owned its predecessor and were very happy with that.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was performed with a reseller, but you should have some idea about how you would like to ‘shape’ your environment. All can be altered afterwards if you would reconsider.

What about the implementation team?

Vendor team. I would rate them 8/10; An HP technical expert was needed for some configuration add-ons.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes, comparable systems from Dell, EMC and Hitachi.

What other advice do I have?

Organize a couple of meetings with the technical staff to build the storage array that will meet your demands. Knowing in front which type of RAID you will need and the type of IO will benefit you.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user107568Works at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

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Feb 20, 2015

Want to be sure folks see that HP 3PAR All-Flash won the All-Flash Array Product of the Year Award from TechTarget. I have a blog that talks about it. hpstorage.me/19Cw9a8. There's been lots of other "best of" for the HP 3PAR family - if you're interested in those, drop me an email at hpstorageguy at hp dot com.

Free Report: HPE 3PAR StoreServ Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about HPE 3PAR StoreServ. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.

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it_user185622

Managing Director with 51-200 employees

Jan 25, 2015

Adding Drives To Your 3PAR Array is a relatively easy process.

About a year ago I was tasked with expanding one of this first US production StoreServ 7000 arrays and wanted to share the process and shed some light on the "gotchas" involved. This post was sitting in my drafts folder 90% completed for a while now but as many 7000 arrays are starting to be expanded I wanted to complete this post.

The system I was working on it was relatively small since this Financial client was just getting starting with 3PAR storage. We started with a one shelf 16 drive 7200 array (leaving 8 slots open) and the task at hand was to fill the remaining 8 slots with 450GB 10K SFF drives. As depicted in the StoreServ Installation Guide adding drives to the array is a relatively easy process. Overall there are 5 milestones to the process with a majority of them being fully "autonomic", they are:

• Checking initial status
• Inserting Hard Drives
• Checking Status
• Checking Progress
• Completing the upgrade

Read the rest of the post at http://3cvguy.com/tolessons-learned-adding-drives-...

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user107568Works at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

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Feb 20, 2015

Want to be sure folks see that HP 3PAR All-Flash won the All-Flash Product of the Year Award from TechTarget. I have a blog that talks about it. hpstorage.me/19Cw9a8

See all 2 comments

it_user184665

Independent IT Analyst with 51-200 employees

Jan 22, 2015

Interesting and comprehensive family of products which now includes a native file interface

HP 3PAR, 360° storage

This is the first time in a while that I won’t be attending HP Discover. It’s a pity, not only because I have the chance to get updates directly from the horse’s mouth there, but also because it is always well frequented by good bloggers and other interesting people. At the event, HP usually organizes what they call “coffee talks” and you have the chance to get briefed and also have a lot of confrontation on each single line of their business (not that I’m really interested in everything they do, but Storage, Cloud and Enterprise IT in general are all well covered). BTW, thanks to my friend Calvin Zito I got news in advance and even though I’m overseas at the moment, I want to comment on what I discovered a few days ago.

When good gets better

You’re most likely aware that I still consider HP and HDS among the best companies when it comes to some enterprise storage solutions (especially when we talk about tier 1 storage) and, this is the case of 3PAR, I really like the fact that you can buy a storage in the order of $25.000 that has the same identical characteristics and features of the biggest one. Different in size, identical in functionalities.

This is a major benefit for the end user. A small organization knows it can grow with virtually no limits on an enterprise-class platform, while the larger ones have many possibilities to serve, on a single platform, most of their needs from the primary data centers to the branch offices. This really helps if you want to keep your IT infrastructure as simple as possibile, and you care about TCO.

3Par has come out with a lot of good things in the last couple of years both from the hardware (the 7450, aka the flash memory play, is a vivid example) and the software aspects (features like peer motion or Adaptive flash cache for example). All steps that have contributed to building up a very interesting and comprehensive family of products. But something was always missing!

File (and objects!)

Looks like we finally got it! Native File interface from 3PAR (through a software license, not external appliances!!!). On paper it looks pretty good: SMB3, NFS v4/3 and, of course Active Directory, DFS, Microsoft Management Control integration, NMDP and other features you usually find on the best NAS boxes. (I said “on paper” because I’m not there to see how it really works, but on paper it looks great!).

And… there’s more. Object Access via API (which is not totally clear to me… the documentation is a little elusive). Let’s suppose this is an S3 (or Swift) interface to the same files you can access via SMB or NFS, it would be another great feature. (something I wrote about a few years ago indeed, and I’m glad other unified-storage vendors are working on it too)
A feature like this can’t compete with real object storage, just because 3PAR is a primary storage and can’t achieve the level of cost and scalability of an object storage, but this could have its (many) applications! If you need a few TBs for sync&share, a development system, a private object storage for some critical data, you name it.

7440c

On the hardware front, if I got it right, you can all of these features on a new model called 7440c. C stays for Converged and specs are very comparable to the 7450 (no new ASIC so), but it’s “hybrid”… which obviously means that you can have it with both Flash and disks. The 7440c can also scale up to 3.5PB of usable space (calculated with dedupe on, of course).

It’s not clear to me whether File/Object access is available only to this model, but I’m hoping that all the features will soon, if not already, be available on all other models of the family (like it already happens for any other software feature).

The Icing on the Cake

There is a new feature that allows a 3PAR array to move its snapshots directly to the StoreOnce VTL! This is called HP StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central. No backup software and no complexity.
Long story short: Nice and useful! You can take a consistent snapshot and you can automatically save the data directly into a StoreOnce VTL. Time saved, software backup saved and complexity saved.
The first version is compatible only with VMware but other options will be added later. I would love to see a demo (but I’m not there)

The P10400, and more in general all P10000models, absolutely needs a refresh. The the 7440c outshines the P10400 and it probably costs a fraction. I’m sure that at next HP Discover in Las Vegas we will see a Gen5 ASIC and other features that will re-establish the right positioning of the whole line-up. It’s highly likely next year’s event in Las Vegas will bring a lot of news again. (a new ASIC for sure, IMHO)

I really love the File access option. It is really interesting, especially in the SMB space where the 7200/7400 can now fight with similar functionalities (but a better backend architecture) against NetApp FAS and EMC VNX. My only concern is about CPU/ASIC usage on current (old) models and, consequently, performance. I hope that HP will show some benchmarks soon.

First published here.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. HP has been a client of Juku consulting. Last year I published a couple of white papers for HP (one about 3PAR and one about StoreVirtual VSA), they also invite me often to their events and I recently joined an advisory council with other bloggers to review some of their products. However, the content is not reviewed, approved or published by any other person than the Juku team.

it_user107568Works at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

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Jul 17, 2015

Hi Steven - I can't speak to performance specifics for Nimble because they haven't submitted to the SPC-1 benchmark site. What I do know is we have lots of service providers and other customers who are running mix workloads and they're quiet happy with 3PAR performance. And getting really good performance out of mixed workloads is in my mind the benchmark for performance.

Nimble's performance is dependent on getting the entire active dataset into SSD and my understanding is that 5% of an array is SSD. If you're working set is bigger than that, my understanding is performance will be impacted because the other 95% of the capacity is 7200 rpm nearline SAS drives.

The 3PAR family can scale up to 3.2 million IOPS out of a single system so performance there is not only dependent on the workload but on which system you're evaluating. Happy to answer any questions you have.

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