HPE StoreOnce Reviews

It's fast and reliable when compared to tape solutions.

Over 51TB of data is backed up and replicated off-site every week quickly and reliably, compared to the laborious tape archiving solution we had in the past.

The web-GUI is not intuitive enough for basic users and offers fairly limited functionality compared to a backup solution such as Veeam or Backup-Exec.

I've used it for 15 months.

No issues encountered.

Rarely have issues with stability.

No issues when you need to scale up. It's as simple as 'chucking more disks' into the array when the space needs expanding.

Good from HP, as usual (on a contract).

Good from HP, as usual (on a contract).

We previously used Symantec Backup-Exec to LTO-4 tape. We switched because we needed a more scalable solution that was faster and allowed replication off-site nightly at a much quicker rate.

Simple, it was handled by HP.

We had HP do the implementation, with a third party consultancy firm called System Professional. They had exceptional understanding of the entire platform.

I cannot put a price on this investment. Suffice it to say that the countless number of man-hours saved not having to deal with tapes every day/week/month is invaluable.

£100,000 including installation, support and maintenance contracts. This also includes two StoreOnce devices - one at our datacentre, and one replica at another campus.

No, we have an extensive support contract with HP and were given a heavily discounted educational agreement as opposed to what other vendors such as EMC were offering.

If you work for an educational institution (as I do), the potential long-term savings will easily add up compared to the short-term initial investment. Do your homework and look elsewhere and you will find it difficult to beat the product/service in terms of cost and performance

The ability to control where the dedupe takes place. StoreOnce allows deduplication in three locations; the client, the backup appliance and designated media servers. This flexibility can come in handy especially in smaller shops/data centers. For example, if network bandwidth is the issue you can dedupe at the client, and that reduces the total amount of data that has to be sent over the wire, or if a backup client doesn’t have the horsepower to dedicate CPU and memory to the dedupe process, you can do it at a designated media server (90% of our backups happen that way). Thirdly, at some of our smaller data clusters, our clients needs all their CPU and memory for running apps, and we don’t have a dedicated media server so we let the StoreOnce appliance do the deduplication.

Also, the ease of replicating between the three types of StoreOnce devices.

Since we went from disk to tape to D2D that’s a huge improvement. We now have faster more reliable backups, easy replication between data centers and smaller credit centers.

• Capacity of the B6200 as the capacity has improved/tripled in the 6500
• It would be nice if it dedupelicated per service set instead of by the store

I've used it for two years including testing, and in production for 16 months.

The B6200 was designed to ingest data from different networks and we had three. Some we had to do some additional VLAN tagging.

We’ve experienced data lost. We’ve had three stores go off-line (which were recoverable) and had a disk become corrupt at the service set/couplet level. The corrupt service set had to be formatted and we lost 40TB of data. Luckily most of it was replicated from another data center.

9/10.

8/10.

We didn't have a previous solution.

It was very complex because our setup included six data centers with three types of StoreOnce devices. Replication between multiple sites, and Oracle, Lotus Notes, VMware, SQL, and Exchange online integrations.

We used a vendor team who were 5/10. HP sent their design team, and they were helpful but the StoreOnce product was very new and they were learning the product. We were given bad information which led to a crash.

We also looked at Data Domain, and another whose name I can't remember.

Don’t get the B6200 get the 6500 even if you have to start small in terms of storage. You can add on as you need it.

StoreOnce has the following advantages:

• Fast backup
• No need to manage and store tapes
• Ability to run data straight from the device in case of a disaster
• Reliable compared to weekly problems with tapes
• The data is replicated to two remote locations

We have moved away from tape backup.

I've used it for one year.

We had one problem when data replication got stuck and we had to ask HP for help.

No issues encountered.

It's very good.

It's very good.

We only used a tape solution. We switched because tapes are too slow, prone to mechanical problems, tape management is a burden, and the time taken to do a restore is slow.

It was easy. Also I did HPs StoreOnce training.

HP installed the device for us, and showed us various configuration options. The team was very knowledgeable.

The initial cost was high, however, day to day costs are low.

I could not find a better product.

It is worth buying HP installation. It is difficult to estimate how much storage is needed as de-duplication depends on the type of data, so reserve extra money for expansions, and buy a model which can be expanded. Also, the StoreOnce course is very good.

The product was easy for me in terms of architecture, deployment and support. In comparison to other products I have worked with, these areas for HP have high scores.

It has provided flexible options accommodating a broad range of uses. For example, multiple data types can be isolated and segregated to provide multi-tenancy.

Reporting needs to be worked on.

I've used it for one year.

No issues encountered.

Yes we did, but it was resolved with a software upgrade.

No issues encountered.

Above average service.

Above average with excellent response times. In one case, I needed a hard drive replaced, and the person who took my call was the person who arranged the engineer/part to be replaced. Also, the person was knowledgeable about the product.

No previous solution was being used.

It was straightforward. We went from proof of concept to production in days as opposed to weeks.

We implemented it in-house.

• Quantum
• Symantec

Clearly understand your needs before looking for a solution.

• Deduplication
• Performance

It has provided us with easier and faster backup, and recovery solutions.

It needs better integration with third party backup applications.

I've used it for three years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues with the systems size from VSA (Virtual appliance) to a four couplet system.

7.5/10.

8/10.

Previously, we used tape systems for backup and recovery.

It's an easy installation if you start with the virtual appliance (VSA). There are also white papers and best practices available.

We did it in-house.

We have saved time as less is spent on tape handling, and there are fewer hardware issues than with a tape. Also, the ROI has been achieved with faster backup and restores. I would say it takes around 18 months to get ROI.

A one TB VSA is available for free and there is no need for day-to-day administration, just daily check of backup applications and jobs.

We also looked at EMC Datadomain.

Deduplication ratio depends on your data types. Do a Proof of Concept with the free VSA to test the product.

• Dedupe - it allows us to store several hundred TB of data on 60TB of storage
• Replication - it is a must so the backup data can be replicated off-site in the event of a disaster

It has reduced the amount of backup data stored on disk.

It could be better at dedupe.

I've used the solution for two years.

No issues encountered.

Six months after purchasing StoreOnce, the database became corrupt and the unit had to be replaced.

We have had to expand the capacity and there were no issues.

It's great.

It's great.

No previous solution was used.

It was straightforward to implement.

HP did the installation.

No other options were evaluated.

Purchase a second unit for replication.

The ease of use and configuration once implemented and the deduplication features.

Before the StoreOnce solution was implemented all kinds of backup solutions and software were being used in this international company, making it very difficult to manage, keep control over the backups, losing data left and right, very unprofessional.

Also a lot of tapes needed to be kept offside, using one of these companies that comes and collects tapes to store in a secure location, this costs the company a lot of money.

Now several StoreOnce appliances sync with each other to take care of the disaster recovery compliancy, remote offices stream deduplicated backup data to the StoreOnce and use the same backup software as all other locations.

The initial installation and configuration into the network and the integration into the infrastructure needs some improvement, but it's not too difficult if you plan right.

For well over 1 year now.

The deployment of the solution is done by HP, they insisted on it, the initial planning was the task of the client, there were some bumps along the road, but in the end it was deployed rather quickly.

No issues during initial config, can't say there were any stability issues.

The scalability is something you need to plan for ahead, the amount of TB you're looking to backup now and how much it would grow in the future. Depending on the outcome of your calculation you need to choose the model accordingly (the higher models allow for more scalability - read higher amount of TB that can be stored).

No issues with customer service, quick and correct.

They could answer all our questions and helped us to get going without too much time and effort.

Previously it was a bunch of solutions (backup to disk, to tape, etc) and all kinds of different backup software dispersed over different locations, very unmanageable and lots of issues with backup. It needed to be consolidated and in the meantime it needed to provide the necessary Disaster Recovery abilities. That's why this solution was chosen.

Initial setup was done along with HP, it wasn't overly complex if you know something about backup and the software solution to go along with it, if you have to start from scratch it can be quite the task, it isn't plug and play, there is quite some configuration to be done, you also need to know your backup environments in and out, plan ahead. You need to know what goes where and how it will be replicated.

As mentioned earlier, the solution was implemented along with HP, their level of expertise was above par.

Too soon to tell, but initial reports tell us it definitely will save us a lot of money, on tapes and tape handling alone.

Yes, some other solutions came across our desk, but I can't remember which ones though. Pretty early on we chose to go with HP StoreOnce.

Read up on the solution, there are a lot of advantages in this product, all depends on your environment, if you are one of those companies that has a lot of tapes and different locations, it could definitely be something for you. The deduplication is great on this solution, no more TB's of wasted space, send deduplicated backup data over those expensive leased lines saving bandwidth, and so on...