HPE StoreOnce Reviews

We primarily use the solution for a backup. Today, we are using Micro Focus Data Protector, which is a former HPE product, however, we are migrating Convault.

There are a few great features. Obviously, deduplication is a big one. There are the catalyst stores that we are using. It's a feature that does what we need it to do. We've been using the 5100 for quite some time with a lot of success and no issues. However, we were looking, at first, at expanding, however, we couldn't expand them anymore as they were at end of life. Now we are looking at the new generation, the latest, 5260.

It is easy to set up the product.

The solution is stable. 

You can easily scale the solution.

I haven't come across any missing features.

One item I wanted to see is SSD drives as a cache. Data is taken in by the subsystem on SSD drives and as later on offloaded to spinning media. That was a feature that you could already see in primary storage, and that was, for a time, still lacking in StoreOnce, however, they have done it now. It's not available yet, however, it will be shortly.

I, myself, worked for HPE for 34 years. Now, I'm working as an independent consultant. I'm working at a pharmaceutical company and they've been using it for four years.

It is an absolutely stable solution. We haven't had any issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. it's reliable. 

The solution is definitely scalable, to the extent that we need it. For our purposes, it is definitely scalable enough. It's modular enough. You can add, with the 5260, 192 terabytes of raw capacity that you can extend one shelf at a time.

Technical support is helpful, however, an advantage that I have is that I know the company inside out. I still have contact with my former colleagues there. They do their job. They are helpful and responsive.

The solution is easy to set up. It's not complex or difficult. I'd rate it nine out of ten in terms of ease of implementation.

I'm not into financials. I'm a technical guy. I just help with planning and designing a solution, and then others decide on pricing and configuration. I'm working as an external consultant, therefore, I don't have any decision-making there. 

I don't have any practical experience with many other solutions. Coming out of HPE, going to work as an independent consultant in a company that is using a lot of HPE products, I'm obviously quite satisfied that they are using StoreOnce, and they will keep on using it. 

In terms of the version we are using, we have the StoreOnce 5100 and now we're looking at the StoreOnce 5260.

I'd recommend the solution to others. It has the features that we require and the features that, are required by a lot of companies that have a lot of data today. It's all about data. Data requirements are booming in the primary storage market and storage subsystems. Obviously, to be protected, you need to back up the data. And there, it does what it needs to do. There are petabytes of user data that you can store on a terabyte type back up to the disk subsystem. 

That said, if you go to medium-sized companies or small-sized companies, probably there will be cheaper and smaller-scale options. For instance, the StoreOnce that we are using, are long connected, so they are accessed through the network, however, they're also connected through a SUMP, so a storage area network. That is something that you find mostly in the bigger companies that have the financial means to buy these types of subsystems. It would be depending on size and requirements. For bigger organizations, therefore, I would definitely advise they go for this product.

I would rate the product nine out of ten.

We are a financial organization and HPE StoreOnce backs up our data on a daily basis. Our entire infrastructure is running on HPE's main server and this backup solution was implemented as part of it.

In the financial industry, we have to retain backups for certain types of information for different periods of time. Some data is retained for three months, whereas other types of data are retained for five years.

The size of the backup data is very small, which is one of the features that we really like. Our data center grows between 20% and 30% each year and it is currently at 70 terabytes in size. We are now running a 40 terabyte backup, which is between 80% and 90% capacity. This size of the backup is really attractive.

The deduplication feature works well.

We did not find the accompanying software, Data Protector, very useful. Instead, we purchased a separate backup utility called Arcserve Backup.

One of the drawbacks of this product is that you cannot add another disk array when you reach capacity. Scaling is very costly because you have to buy a new box.

In the future, I would like to see built-in, hardware-level protection against ransomware attacks.

We have been working with HPE StoreOnce for between six and seven years.

We have not encountered any issues with it and I would say that it is quite stable. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

We have just reached capacity and we are now trying to get a new box.

The support is quite good. If we have any issues then they will connect remotely to assist us. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The licensing fees are based on how much storage space is required.

This is a good product and I recommend it. However, I think that it is important to consider which backup software to use. If it does not support the capacity that the StoreOnce has then you will run into a problem.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Excellent deduplication ratios.

It did not improve the way my organization functions: It was just an alternative method to accomplish what was being done a different way.

The UI is rather dated and not intuitive. Also, the setup is rather complex and you need to understand the product to best leverage it.

The GUI has a look from the traditional HP interfaces of 10 years ago. The layout is confusing as it is designed for someone that really understands the underpinnings of StoreOnce. The P6500 is basically a pair of DL380 servers running a Linux distribution clustered with all the necessary hardware and then is presented as a single StoreOnce appliance. Many of the menus in the GUI provide drill down capabilities that can get you deep into the inner workings of the appliance but, unless you know what you are doing, it is more there for support to utilize. While the appliance is a single cluster you are really working with each node individually further complicating management of the device. You need to put some thought into how you will distribute the workload across the nodes because the appliance does not provide any mechanisms for load balancing. While HPE claims StoreOnce will work with CommVault, our experience was that the use case was very narrow. While the P6500 has some beefy hardware the software is the Achilles heel. We found that as the dataset grows the P6500 becomes bogged down in housecleaning tasks that conflict with the incoming workload.

3 months.

The product did not scale well and had several issues where it bogged down under load. When used with a non HPE backup product, you really need to optimize the StoreOnce and your backup product to work well together.

Support was good, better than average, but left a little room for improvement.

We were using native backup (Commvault), which was unreliable. We selected this as a method to improve and better scale our backup deduplication, but it turned out StoreOnce introduced enough inconsistencies and incompatibilities, we actually went back to Commvault’s native deduplication.

You need vendor assistance to get the product properly set up and configured.

Vendors supplied resources for install and initial configuration assistance.

Make sure you understand your use case very well, go over it in detail with the vendor and get commitments that it is compatible with your use case.

Many clients opt for HPE StoreOnce for local backups in a hybrid cloud setup. Larger customers often handle installations internally, utilizing StoreOnce for local backup and a solution like Veeam or Acronis for their private cloud. Most of them prefer the BIM license for this purpose. 

In my view, using tapes alongside HPE StoreOnce can provide better data protection. While StoreOnce allows for quick data recovery, having tapes as a backup ensures safety in case of StoreOnce issues. I always recommend having both for essential data to minimize downtime.

I think StoreOnce's deduplication technology is crucial for cost efficiency and faster recovery, especially for backup and data protection purposes. Based on my understanding, its impact on data recovery would vary depending on factors like the size of the backup and the scenario in which it's used. For smaller backups or non-production scenarios, the impact may not be significant, but for larger backups or critical production data, there could be a more substantial impact.

In terms of areas for improvement, I believe HPE StoreOnce could learn from competitors like Dell's Data Domain and ExtraHop in refining its architecture. As for rating the initial setup experience on a scale of one to ten, I would rate it as an eight in terms of ease.

I have experience with HPE StoreOnce.

I would rate the stability of HPE StoreOnce as a 7 out of 10.

In terms of scalability, it's satisfactory as we can expand the StoreOnce solution as needed. Our clients range from medium to large enterprises.

I would rate the initial setup of HPE StoreOnce as a 5 because it's not very difficult but also not extremely straightforward. The deployment typically takes from hours to a couple of days, depending on the customer's requirements and configurations. 

I would rate it around 2 or 3 because, compared to others, it tends to be higher priced.

I would recommend it as we are an HPE partner and trust their infrastructure and services. However, I always provide honest feedback and mention areas for improvement when asked. I would rate it around a 7.

The solution saves a lot of storage capacity. It provides optimization, compression, and deduplication features. It gives me confidence about the security of the environment. It is integrated with Catalyst and SimpliVity. I can use SimpliVity for backup.

The backups are outside the production network. They are not connected. It is easy to recover the information. It is easy to get access to the environment. I have a lot of storage backups. Catalyst is the most valuable function for data deduplication. I have noticed some improvements in our data retention. The product is very efficient. I have very old backups. I do not have to clean out old backups for a long period.

The solution must provide backup options for smaller capacities. We do not need much storage capacity due to compression and deduplication. We do not use all the capacity. My device is half occupied. The solution must provide cloud management features. A lot of HPE devices and technologies are going to the cloud. I do not know if HPE StoreOnce can be managed on the cloud.

I have been using the solution for eight to ten years.

The tool’s stability has been great. I rate the stability a nine or ten out of ten.

Small, medium and large organizations can take advantage of the tool’s capacity and performance.

I am happy with the support team.

Positive

The initial setup is simple. The concepts were easy for us.

I rate the pricing a four out of ten. The solution is pretty expensive. It's not cheap because it's bigger than what we need.

My storage needs are less, so I did not need to scale the tool. I rate the solution’s management and integration a seven or eight out of ten. HPE is better than other products. It provides good integrations and storage. If anyone asks me what I do to store my backups, I tell them about HPE StoreOnce. I’m happy with the product. We also use it for recovery. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use HPE StoreOnce for data backup.

The platform's price could be lower. We export data from websites every week. The processing speed is very slow.

We have been using HPE StoreOnce for a year.

I rate the product's stability a ten out of ten.

We have 300 HPE StoreOnce users. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

The technical support has a good response time. I reached out to them regarding a hard disk failure issue. They called me, understood the problem, and replaced the disk within two hours.

The initial setup is simple. It requires administrative executives to work on the process and takes a day or two to complete.

I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten.

I rate HPE StoreOnce an eight out of ten. It is a good solution in the market.

The good feature about StoreOnce is, its speed. It's integration with 3PAR, so you can do express backups. You can take your snapshots from your 3PAR and you can back it up directly to your StoreOnce. The other nice feature about that is, you can then take your data, and if you wanted to, you can replicate it to another StoreOnce. Even from there, you can have that ... Then you can also offload it Tape. With 3PAR and with StoreOnce, we kind of have an end to end solution for the customer. The other nice thing about StoreOnce is, it supports VTL. You can do a VTL type configuration on your StoreOnce, you can do Catalyst stores, and then you can also do NAS stores.

This is just a personal thing for me as it comes down to documentation and giving clear information. If you want to do express backup from 3PAR to StoreOnce, you need the RMC license, you need Virtual Copy on 3PAR, and then you need the Catalyst license. I've been to a bunch of tech talks, and they never really say this specifically. It's in the quick specs, but I remember my boss asking "What are you adding that license for," and I said, "It's required. Here's the documentation, but I don't think the message is clear enough." You know what I mean? I understand people need to understand the technology, but when it comes down to it, if you're creating a parts list, a build that's supposed to go into a customer's site and work, if you don't know all the parts and pieces, then you've got a failed implementation. That's just my personal view.

It doesn't replace traditional backup, but if you want a solution that can back up your snapshots quickly and reliably, then StoreOnce is good.

Federated Catalyst Replication allows us to centrally control and store all backup data with minimal effort and administration, and also removes relying on onsite staff at remote locations to change tapes.

Not every office has skilled IT staff, so changing backup tapes was always a challenge. A person was typically “burdened” with the task of changing tapes daily or weekly and would often be neglected for other priorities or be completely forgotten if the staff member was away or on leave. Now, there is no requirement for any staff member at remote sites to be involved in any task related to data backup and recovery.

We averaged at least three missed backups a month due to issues with the right backup tapes not being in the drive at the time of a backup. This has been completely eliminated since moving to StoreOnce and using Catalyst Stores and Catalyst Replications since all data moves are automated and bandwidth friendly, so they complete well within our nightly backup windows, and tapes are only used at the Datacentre which is controlled by trained IT professionals. We now have no one to blame but ourselves

1. Other products are able to read and write directly to/from StoreOnce Catalyst Stores (Symantec NetBackup and Backup Exec, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP, Oracle and soon Veeam Backup & Replication). However, they cannot integrate with StoreOnce Catalyst Replication. The replication must be triggered by software such as HP Data Protector, which must first know about the data that exists on the Catalyst Store. Unfortunately, data written to a Catalyst Store by one of the other products is not visible to Data Protector, so automating actions to occur based on new data being written to a Catalyst Store is not available. This really limits the ability to integrate all backups in to the Catalyst Store using their own native tools (MSSQL Maintenance Plans for example) and leverage the Federated Catalyst Replication capabilities. All backups must be written by Data Protector use Federated Catalyst.
2. The performance of NAS/CIFS Shares on a StoreOnce is acceptable for a standard write operation, but performance during restores (such as Virtual Machine Restores from Veeam Backup and Replication) is unacceptable. This is being improved as more products natively support StoreOnce Catalyst but is not widely adopted as yet.

We have been using StoreOnce for approximately two years, and couldn't be happier. It's used across two main datacentres and over 15 remote sites that use a combination of the 4430, 4220, and 2620 systems. All StoreOnce systems run the same OS Version, currently 3.12.1. We do not use the VSA, as we strive to maintain physical hardware separation between our production data and disk backups. We backup data at all remote sites to a local StoreOnce device, then replicate it to Datacentre A, then again to Datacentre B, and then finally copy to tape for secure storage.

Also in-use, is HP Data Protector 9.03 which controls backup of data into StoreOnce Catalyst Stores and automated object copy operations which utilise the HP StoreOnce Federated Catalyst to replicate backed up objects between StoreOnce Backup Systems. All data backups at remote sites follows the same routine:

• Single Data Protector Backup Specification for all clients in the site.
• Data Protector Disk Agents back up data to a single HP StoreOnce Gateway (we use one of the same disk agents being backed up to also serve as the gateway).
• Data is written to a StoreOnce Catalyst Store at the local site.
• Data Protector Post-Backup Object Copy Job with the “Use Replication” checkbox enabled is triggered automatically upon completion of the backup to replicate data to Datacentre A.
• The StoreOnce Gateways at both sites trigger a Catalyst Replication where the StoreOnce's replicate the Data Protector Backup Objects from one StoreOnce to the other utilising source-side deduplication has dramatically reduce WAN usage (only blocks that do not exist are transferred).
• Once completed, another Post-Backup Object Copy Job copies the data from the StoreOnce at Datacentre A to a similar StoreOnce at Datacentre B.
• A final Post-Backup Object Copy Job then copies the data from Datacentre B on to LTO6 Tape.

Using this process results in many restore options, and the entire process is automated. We can restore from:

1. StoreOnce at the remote site
2. StoreOnce at Datacentre A
3. StoreOnce at Datacentre B
4. LTO6 Tape at Datacentre B

No real issues other than the change in mindset for our backup administrators and the increase in the number of jobs that are now configured. For a typical remote site the following seven jobs exist:

1. Daily Differential Backup (Monday to Thursday) to local StoreOnce
2. Daily Post-Backup Object Copy to Datacentre A
3. Daily Post-Backup Object Copy from Datacentre A to Datacentre B
4. Weekly Full Backup (Friday) to local StoreOnce
5. Weekly Post-Backup Object Copy to Datacentre A
6. Weekly Post-Backup Object Copy from Datacentre A to Datacentre B
7. Weekly Post-Backup Object Copy from Datacentre B to LTO Tape

There is also now the requirement to upgrade HP Data Protector to provide certified support for newer StoreOnce OS releases. HP Data Protector upgrades typically bring with them enough problems on their own.

We did experience an issue for many months where Post-Backup Object Copy jobs would remain stuck “In Progress” and never report any data movements even though the two StoreOnce devices successfully replicated data. The jobs had to be aborted and manually re-run. We experienced approximately five of these a week out of over 200 jobs that would run. This was eventually fixed in Data Protector 9.03, and a post-hotfix.

The HP StoreOnce support team are very responsive and quick to react to problems and offer ongoing support and guidance. However, StoreOnce really shines when integrated with a backup product that utilises the StoreOnce capabilities to better protect your data. This is where the HP Technical Support breaks down. It is often difficult to have a team take ownership of a problem or admit there is a fault, the blame is often directed to someone else. Typically, we have found this to be more of an issue with the Data Protector Support than with StoreOnce, but being the same company it is quite jarring at times how little cross-communication and teamwork there is despite Data Protector and StoreOnce being so heavily dependent on each other.

We previously used Symantec Backup Exec at remote sites to back up data locally to tape, and HP Data Protector at the Datacentres. Managing two separate products was difficult, particularly with staff trying to remain current on both products that have very different lifecycles. Since we already used Data Protector at the datacentres and HP StoreOnce is the most tightly integrated with Data Protector the choice to use StoreOnce was very easy. We did not evaluate any other disk backup products.

The initial setup was complex, at least compared our previous backup solution of each site being their own installation of Symantec Backup Exec, and only a couple of small jobs to maintain. We have a much larger number of backup jobs to maintain now, and must be very careful when running jobs during business hours as most jobs now have other jobs that chain off them, so you run one job and it could trigger many others.

However, all configuration is done from a central location, all replications are triggered automatically, and we have full tracking of where every piece of backed up data is and where all of its copies also reside. A sore head upfront to have automated backups of every location and centrally replicated and multiple restore locations is well worth it.

We leverage the HP Level Two StoreOnce Startup Service which gave us access to the HP StoreOnce engineers for a few days. We were able to workshop our requirements and vision and come up with a solution that would technically achieve what we wanted. Unfortunately, HP Federated Catalyst depends heavily on HP Data Protector and there doesn’t seem to be much cross-skill of engineers between Data Protector and StoreOnce.

Thankfully we have over eight years of in-house technical experience with Data Protector so we were able to leverage what we learnt during the StoreOnce Startup Service to expand upon the solution and deliver above and beyond what we thought was possible. To make use of Federated Catalyst I strongly recommend a deep understanding of HP Data Protector (it’s not as scary as it first appears to be).

It is not abundantly clear, but the HP Catalyst License also includes the Catalyst Replication capability, so no other license is required if Catalyst Stores are the only backup target being used. StoreOnce devices cannot replicate Catalyst Stores automatically for you, the replication must be triggered by other software such as HP Data Protector.

Depending on the backup product being used with HP StoreOnce, there may be disk backup capacity licenses also required. HP Data Protector requires Advanced Disk Backup Licenses for the usable capacity of the StoreOnce Systems (this is the native usable capacity, regardless of how much data you can actually store thanks to deduplication benefits).

You can use a StoreOnce as a NAS/CIFS Target and also as a Virtual Tape Library. These backup targets can be replicated to other StoreOnce Backup Systems, however these require additional licenses.

We do not have much experience with other disk backup solutions. The Federated Catalyst Replication and the deduplication ratios obtained are amazing. As an example, we only keep two weeks of daily backups and six weeks of weekly backups on disk, and have over 470 backups from around the country stored at Datacentre A which equates to over 140TB of data that consumes less than 13TB on disk. The dedupe ratio is 10.7:1. This ratio grows even larger as retention periods are increased. We are still fine-tuning our retention periods and will likely be doubling them within the next six months.

The StoreOnce VSA is a great place to start as it is 100% functionally the same as a StoreOnce physical device, and you can use a free trial. Definitely the best place to start. The same goes for HP Data Protector.