FreeNAS vs. HPE 3PAR StoreServ

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
FreeNAS
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
FreeNAS is an open source operating system that allows nearly any hardware serve as a network-attached storage device. It was developed by iXsystems.N/A
HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
HPE 3PAR StoreServ is a flash storage option, from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.N/A
Pricing
FreeNASHPE 3PAR StoreServ
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreeNASHPE 3PAR StoreServ
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
FreeNASHPE 3PAR StoreServ
Small Businesses
DiskStation
DiskStation
Score 9.1 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
DiskStation
DiskStation
Score 9.1 out of 10
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
NetApp FAS Storage Arrays
Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises
DiskStation
DiskStation
Score 9.1 out of 10
NetApp AFF A-Series
NetApp AFF A-Series
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreeNASHPE 3PAR StoreServ
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(7 ratings)
9.2
(8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreeNASHPE 3PAR StoreServ
Likelihood to Recommend
iXsystems
FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
HPE 3PAR StoreServ is a great storage device for both file and block-level storage needs. You can use it in place of SAN devices required by database servers. It provides an amazing compaction ratio and, hence, reduces overall storage footprint and cost. This is, however, slightly costly if your environment doesn't really see high transactions most of the time.
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Pros
iXsystems
  • The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
  • The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • We are using HP 3PAR storeServ 8200 for both our file level and block level storage.
  • I really love the amazing compaction ratio provided by HP 3PAR. Some of our disks have compaction ratio above 25:1, which is super amazing. You can definitely look for around 75% reduction of storage footprints.
  • It has a great user friendly web console "SSMC"(StoreServ Management Console). This is an additional bonus and can be used by even non-storage people like DBA and Network to take a look at storage performance.
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Cons
iXsystems
  • Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
  • Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • The system requires a physical or virtual system to manage upgrades and patches and for call home features. Most other systems have this integrated into the array. Just another piece of infrastructure to manage.
  • There are some system jobs that come pre-scheduled in the initial setup, but there is at least 1 job that should be added to this by default. When you delete storage, you also need to run a job to compact the CPG (a group where the luns all reside) to reclaim the previously used storage as free. This should be done by default at least monthly in the background.
  • There are 2 different GUI front ends that can still be used. The older version (3 PAR management console) is being phased out (has been for 3 years).
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Likelihood to Renew
iXsystems
No answers on this topic
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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.
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Support Rating
iXsystems
There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
With their phone home technology, we usually have a replacement part on its way by the time we wake up in the morning, or if the event occurs overnight. We have had great support when we had questions or events that required a call.
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Alternatives Considered
iXsystems
FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
We still use NetApp storage enclosures at each plant for our routine file shares (CIFS) but I would love to swap them out for the HPE 3PARs as we use for our ERP app data. The 3PARS are simply faster and much better at near-instant replication. But even more importantly we can get the reporting that we need from the 3PAR within a few minutes, even custom reports. 3PARs are much easier to manage than NetApps in general and I think that the only place that they compete is in compaction.
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Return on Investment
iXsystems
  • Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
  • Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
  • FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • We grew unexpectedly, which forced us to buy a lot of expensive HP SSD's.
  • We have never had any performance issues with this storage.
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ScreenShots