We performed a comparison between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and StarWind Storage Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two NAS solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."3PAR is different from other storage solutions because it uses a chunklet when we initiate the storage. Every disk is submitted as a 1 GB chunklet. This chunklet can be RAID 1, 4, 5, or 6. This fabulous feature is very useful for me because I can distribute the RAID for any volume. The adaptive optimization is the biggest feature in 3PAR. 3PAR is very usable with thin volume because it detects zeros while writing. Every time I tell the hypervisor to make the full provisioning, it makes the volume as simple provisioning in 3PAR, not full provisioning. Other vendors take this volume as thick provisioning because of which the capacity is reached quickly. It doesn't happen in 3PAR because it detects zeros. It only writes the data, and it doesn't write zeros. There are two processors in 3PAR: the ASIC processor and the main processor. The ASIC processor detects zero writing and doesn't write it, which is a big feature in 3PAR."
"The solution is quite stable and scalable."
"From a single panel, I can see the performance of my service, my network, and my storage."
"Very recently, we are able to do a lot of data center automation by being able to script some of the 3PAR actions for our private cloud."
"This system has been (by far) the easiest to use, manage, and expand."
"We never had a blackout and we have never been offline."
"The most valuable feature when we purchased it was that it was a four-node system."
"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."
"Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy."
"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."
"The management interface is the most valuable feature for us."
"Having instant failover redundancy helps me sleep easier at night."
"They call us when monitoring shows a possible issue and are very flexible in working with our schedule to troubleshoot when it is convenient for us."
"I would say data protection and easy management are the most valuable features of the product...I rate the technical support a nine out of ten."
"The integration is excellent."
"Another good feature is that you can pause the appliance if you want to move it from one location to another and then once it's moved you can resume it, this way you can physically move the whole cluster or storage without any downtime. Its really easy to use, if you have a good foundation in storage and clustering then you will need less then one hour to figure out how to operate it."
"HPE 3PAR StoreServ has limited flexibility in building replication solutions. There are limitations to the number of IOPS the system can do. It's not bad as it is doing its job. However, for the application, if you need a toolbox, you can build everything concerning periodic replication modes of synchronous or asynchronous three-site, four-site, with supported cascading which requires you to buy an IBM product. It also takes a few hours to one day to upgrade the system and sometimes; it takes more time because, in some HPE 3PAR StoreServ 20000 Storage, you have an eight-node system. If you do an upgrade, you do it node by node and every node might take more than an hour."
"The hard part with the initial setup was that we were on EMC VNX and trying to get those converted over into the HPE 3PAR, that process took awhile, along with scheduling downtime to get some of the physical stuff migrated over to the new device."
"The setup was complex from the perspective of the employees having to go through five days of training. If they simplified the administrative process of maintaining the unit, that would go a long way."
"The speed of the hard disk could be better. The performance is the main issue for us. The performance of the VMs is not comparable to desktop machines, for instance, and we might need another solution to improve the performance. Other than that, we don't have any issues. We already have a great part of storage with SSDs, and the performance is not as good as I expected."
"The tool needs improvement in the utilization report at the granular level."
"3PAR has StoreOnce and replication. I would like it if they worked together. Or, if I had Nimble and put that either in DR or a primary cohesive management, but still use the cool features of 3PAR, that would be awesome."
"Extending is not a problem, scalability is okay. But once you buy additional box of disks, you have to wait for HPE to contact you with their plan for implementation, for connecting, and it can take several weeks. So, you have the box and you have to wait for several weeks to actually implement it."
"We have had a few issues with it. We had our virtual environment lock up a few times on storage-based things. We think we have it sorted out, but maybe it came down to a configuration issue on it."
"Other solutions, such as StorMagic, offer more flexibility in terms of handling caching and moving data between additional nodes."
"The dashboard features are not in the free version."
"They offered onsite installation, but we chose to do it ourselves. That took longer and was more work for us but saved us a ton of money in the end."
"StarWind should improve the synchronization time of its product. There should be a standard operating procedure (SOP) for synchronization to reduce the time it takes."
"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."
"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."
"With StarWind Storage Appliance, it would be better to have an overall easier setup with a little bit of configuration changes since, currently, even a small mistake may cause the setup process to go wrong."
"They could improve by providing integration with HP."
HPE 3PAR StoreServ is ranked 6th in NAS with 299 reviews while StarWind Storage Appliance is ranked 10th in NAS with 9 reviews. HPE 3PAR StoreServ is rated 8.6, while StarWind Storage Appliance is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of HPE 3PAR StoreServ writes "The product's technical support is outstanding as I can reach someone right away". On the other hand, the top reviewer of StarWind Storage Appliance writes "Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes". HPE 3PAR StoreServ is most compared with HPE Primera, Dell Unity XT, HPE Nimble Storage, NetApp AFF and HPE StorageWorks MSA, whereas StarWind Storage Appliance is most compared with FreeNAS, StoneFly VSO NAS, StorMagic SvSAN and VMware vSAN. See our HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs. StarWind Storage Appliance report.
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