This was our first HyperConverged solution.

I've previously used Openfiler. Openfiler didn't have the network RAID, and it didn't synchronize. It was just for one storage solution.

Actually, at the time of my initial use, I did try building my own iSCSI server (I still have that running actually) but HPE StoreVirtual has many more features and works for me. Today, I also have VMware VSAN, HPE StoreVirtual, and even a fibre channel array. I have had a fibre channel infrastructure for well over 12 years. I needed an iSCSI environment as well. This was the best option at the time and today is a core part of my virtual environment.

We were previously using NetApp for block-based storage requirements. HP StoreVirtual (LeftHand) was selected due to the lower initial purchase (CapEx) and subsequent support (OpEx) costs.

This is actually what we selected when we started this search. When selecting a vendor, cost is there, of course, but more than that, some of the other things I've mentioned: Ease of use, reliability, and support. The relationship goes a long way, too. Having access to people directly, whether that's sales engineers, or the sales team themselves. We are a small company, so getting attention from a big company like HPE is great. We probably wouldn't get that from other companies.

EMC CLARiiON, IBM DS 4000 series – HP LeftHand presented a more rounded and mature storage solution.

StoreVirtual was chosen by our Head of Infrastructure as he wanted a product that provided highly resilient storage replication with our IBM hardware. StoreVirtual is a good product if you are a non-HP customer, however if you use HP hardware I would recommend using Peer-Persistence, essentially a hardware VSA rather than the software based product – it is much more reliable. We are moving to two new data center 4th quarter of 2016 and we will be using HP hardware (3PAR) and Peer-Persistence and StoreVirtual will be decommissioned.

We previously used an HP LeftHand P4500 SAN, the predecessor of the HP VSA. We used it for 5 years but switched to the new one because HP support was ending on the old one and we were out of capacity.

We previously had MSA units, and we chose P4000 class as it was the next step solution for us. We will be evaluating HP StoreServ 8000 series for these remote site setups. We currently use HP StoreServ 7000 series for our main datacenter and may potentially move to this solution if we determine cost savings and ease of setup.

We previously used a different HP solution. We switched because this solution was less expensive and much more scalable.

We have used many monolithic and traditional storage systems and all proved to not be highly available with single units. However, StoreVirtual can be split into two, providing you the benefit of redundant active data centers without doubling the cost.

Initially, we used a HP entry level "SAN" HP P2000 G2. It was for our initial virtualization project.

We'd seen a couple of lunch and learns and meetings and talked to some of the LeftHand people, and decided it made sense cost-wise and function-wise. We were using some Dell EqualLogics, actually we were using EqualLogic before Dell bought them. So we were still using those in conjunction with the LeftHands that then became StoreVirtuals. Then when we put in one of the C3000 BladeEnclosures, we bought an actual StoreVirtual and that gave us the space to run the servers that we need.

As we move away from physical tech and look more into virtual solutions and sharing infrastructures in the medical world, we need to secure our data. Even our test data needs to be locked away and separate from other data for security reasons. So we were looking in particular for a small environment but yet big enough for our test environment. ConvergedSystem hits that sweet spot where we have just enough compute, storage, and networking capability.

We were not using any other solution previously. Our partner suggested this product; we saw that it fits our needs and tried it out. We were quite pleased with the result and decided to invest in this solution.

I have tried StarWind’s VSAN solution, but decided to go with HP VSA because it was included in the purchase price of my HP DL360 G9, approximately $20,000.

We did not use a different solution before this one.

I also used P2000, Dell EquaLogic and DataCore. P2000 is a lower-end product. EquaLogic didn’t have online replication and automated fail over at the time. DataCore is storage software, and I found it difficult to maintain due to the large hardware base they need to support.

We used HP's Enterprise Virtual Array and EMC's CX3 and CX4 arrays (and still use some of this hardware as pure capacity behind HP StoreVirtual). We went for StoreVirtual at that time as StoreVirtual provided much more functionality (and based on an all-inclusive pricing) than our existing storage arrays.

StoreVirtual/LeftHand is very well known in the HPE world. For vSphere, I don’t have the hardware to run VMware VSAN. For Hyper-V, it is rumored to be easier to use than MS Storage Spaces. For KVM it is perceived to be the easiest available solution (due to my ignorance, perhaps?).

We did not use a different solution. We chose StoreVirtual as it ticked many boxes in regards to our needs.

Before this we were just using a physical service and then moved to the virtual environment using VSA.

Our partner recommended this solution. We took a deep look, analyzed, and decided we can go with this solution.

There was no solution in place previously.

This was already in the company when I joined.

We used LeftHand for block-based storage and other storage solutions for file storage.