HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

The 3PAR flash storage is perfect for use cases that need high I/O and low latency (like data bases or even VDI). The flexibility of the system allows you quickly to allocate or expand storage. I would not recommend it for use in archival storage (too expensive) or for systems that have very low I/O requirements.

Incentivized

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays should be used for critical system backups, databases, for critical applications due to different write allocation algorithms. These systems have faster underlying SSD drives comparing to older types, so in result, Inline data de-duplication in these systems are not noticeable. The idea for these types is valuable for MetroCluster configuration within switchover, in terms of disaster recovery. Performance and response time of EF-series are really exceptional, but comparing to the costs this the rpice for it.

Incentivized

• Replication - HPE 3PAR offers exceptionally fast and well-managed replication with little latency and that's why we bought it to store and protect our most important ERP data. We wanted identical performance and connectivity for our primary storage and our failover (DR) storage and so we bought two of them.
• Hybrid storage is right up HPE's alley. You can assign different roles to different types of storage arrays inside one enclosure, for instance, you can store your data that needs super high availability and fast IOPS on an all-flash volume but on the same shelf you can have a platter array for longer-term and less- time-critical data. This saves a lot of money on the front end because you don't have to buy all-flash. Why go all-flash for that data where you aren't going to need it?
• 3PARs can do both file-level and block-level replication which is nice.
• The data compression/compaction is really very good.

Incentivized

• Good to use for Hyper-V Shared volume
• Good to use for passthrough DISK
• Very Good for NFS share

Incentivized

• No SNMP Support: You can monitor almost every device nowadays with SNMP, but 3PAR does not support it. You have to buy HP Openview, which costs extra and does not integrate well with your already existing monitoring solution.
• No NFS Support: HP provides an ugly workaround by deploying a VM onto 3PAR that then provides the assigned storage as NFS storage.
• Only expensive SSDs can be run.
• Upgrading the storage with new firmware is a horrible process. They assist you with a support center based in India. Just picking an appointment is a hassle. They send you PDFs that look like they have been created by children, with red circles and yellow highlights. You have to go through the whole update routing every time. Even if you already did the routing last time and are now only upgrading a minor release.
• Outdated management application: The application looks like it was developed 20 years ago. It is very unintuitive. They announced that you can manage 3PAR over the web, but it is all again just an ugly workaround. You have to install an application that runs on a web server locally, so you cannot access the management via web from everywhere. The web overview looks nice and is intuitive, but it does not provide all the features. You still have to go to the old application for lots of things.
• The compaction value is just marketing. If you deploy a disk of 100GB and only have data of about 10GB, 3PAR calculates the unused 90GB into the compaction value. This is just for show and does not provide any "space savings." Dedup is where the real savings come in. Depending on the type of data, we have a dedup ration between 1.3:1 and 4.4:1 on our VVols.

• NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays basically provides high bandwidth that's basically used for high end application , but still there are lot of application needs to be run on low/medium bandwidth , for that , there some low/medium IOP's disk need be integrated in storage.
• NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are accessed NetApp SANtricity Web Services Proxy. which is separate tool or agent , its better we can access the GUI vi browser without any tool or agent.
• NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays, need to perform additional configurations for multipathing that's not required in other storage

Incentivized

We are very satisfied with 3PAR performance and especially the IOPS (Input Output Per Second) is pretty amazing. It is easy to configure and doesn't require much knowledge of storage for Tier 1 support team.

Incentivized

HW and SW of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy to use, with very good support.

Incentivized

HPE customer support is very good. We always found them very supportive and their response time was always within our SLA.

Incentivized

We also considered NetApp All-Flash FAS since it works on similar technology and provides comparable throughput. However, we were offered better deal from HPE as we are existing customers for HPE, hence we chose HPE 3PAR StoreServ.

Incentivized

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays provide high IOP's , data protection and other features which makes this storage different from other storage in the enterprise segment , I also worked on IBM DS8K storage and IBM flash storage , But If i compare both of them on basis of performance and feature , I feel Netapp EF series is far better in this segment , I highly recommend Netapp EF series storage , where we required highly IOPS and bandwidth.

Incentivized

• HPE 3 PAR has quickly proved its value to our organization. I cannot speak to ROI, but feel that it has quickly met the expectations of our organization.
• The 3PAR has allowed our organization to expand business due to its ability to be expanded with no downtime.

Incentivized

• Positive Impact on Business where application and database need high IOP's ,data processing speed.
• Its well designed for high end application and database
• Its not well suited for small mid-rang organization because of price.
• Stability and reliability

Incentivized