An array is ageing, the support renewal has landed, and the question is whether to renew, move to third party maintenance or refresh. Put in your own figures and see what each path means over the next three or five years.
Updated 12 October 2026
C4C is an official Dell Technologies, NetApp, HPE and VAST Data partner, tied to none. Nick Watson and Paul Smith each spent over a decade at EMC selling enterprise arrays to finance, banking and telcos, so we know how these renewals are priced and where the room to move is. Talk to us about your array.
Your own numbers only. Nothing leaves your browser unless you send us the summary.
Get a formatted PDF of these results by email, to keep or share with your team. We send it once and do not add you to any list.
Tell us what you run, the support end date and what the renewal looks like. We will give you an honest view of renewing, third party maintenance and refreshing, and a like for like comparison if you refresh. No need to share the quote.
Renewing vendor support takes your annual support cost and applies your assumed yearly increase for each year of the term. Third party maintenance applies the 40 to 70 percent saving range that third party maintenance providers commonly quote to your current support cost, held flat for the term. That range is the providers’ claim, not ours. Refreshing shows what you can measure without a quote: the power and rack space a denser replacement could save, a fresh support term, and capacity headroom. The hardware price itself is quote specific.
It traces back to Gartner research from March 2017, Lower Both Storage Acquisition and Ownership Costs by Using Third Party Maintenance, which put the typical cost difference between third party and vendor support at 40 to 70 percent. Gartner’s last market guide on third party hardware maintenance dates from 2019, and Gartner now lists that market category as retired. Providers still quote similar savings today, but we found no independent study since 2024 that confirms the figure, so treat it as their claim and test it against a real quote.
Third party maintenance is mainly hardware break and fix: parts, engineers and sometimes monitoring. Software and firmware usually stay with the vendor. Dell says only customers with a valid ProSupport entitlement are eligible for SC Series SCOS upgrades (Dell KB 000211062). NetApp’s support terms tie access to software updates to a support contract, and HPE makes selected firmware updates available only to customers with an active agreement. So the real question is not only who replaces a failed drive, but how the array will get the fixes it needs.
It can be expensive, so check before you lapse. NetApp’s support terms say a customer reinstating lapsed support pays the support fees that would have been due during the lapse, any applicable reinstatement fee and the new support term. Everpure applies a reinstatement fee to lapses in Evergreen coverage. Dell and HPE do not publish a single storage wide rule, so ask for it in writing.
No UK rule bans it, but every relevant one makes unpatched firmware a governance question. The ICO points organisations towards in support software and a patching policy, the NCSC warns that software no longer supported will not receive security patches, the NIS Regulations require appropriate and proportionate security measures, and FCA regulated firms must stay within their impact tolerances under operational resilience rules. If you choose third party maintenance, be able to show who provides security fixes and how.
The short version: renew vendor support when engineering help and patches matter most; consider third party maintenance when the array is stable and you have solved how it gets fixes; refresh when support, security, capacity or power make running it longer the bigger risk.
Before you decide, check your dates in our Dell EMC end of life dates, NetApp end of support and HPE 3PAR 8000 end of support guides, or use the storage end of life checker.
It depends on how close the array is to its end of support date, how stable it is, whether it still has the capacity and performance you need, and what the renewal costs against a refresh. If the array still has years of supported life and fits your needs, renewing is usually the safe choice. If it is near or past end of support, stable and not growing, third party maintenance may bridge to a planned refresh. If it will run out of capacity or support during the term, plan the refresh now.
Third party maintenance providers commonly quote savings of 40 to 70 percent against the vendor support price. The figure traces back to Gartner research from 2017, and we found no independent study since 2024 that confirms it, so treat it as the providers’ claim. The real saving depends on the array, the service level and the provider. This calculator applies the range to your own support cost so you can see what it could mean for you.
Usually firmware and software updates, new features and vendor security fixes, because vendors tie these to their own support: Dell, for example, requires valid ProSupport for SC Series SCOS upgrades. Escalation goes to the third party rather than the vendor engineering team. Returning to vendor support later can be costly: NetApp charges the fees for the lapsed period plus a reinstatement fee, so check the vendor’s position before you move.
No UK rule bans it, but regulators expect risk appropriate security. The ICO points to in support software and patching, the NCSC warns that unsupported software receives no security patches, the NIS Regulations require proportionate security measures and FCA regulated firms must stay within their impact tolerances. If you use third party maintenance, be able to show who provides security fixes and how.
Because storage pricing is quote specific. It depends on the platform, capacity, data services, term and the discount agreed, and vendors do not publish a single price. Instead the calculator shows what a refresh changes that you can measure: power, rack space, capacity headroom and a fresh support term. For a real refresh number, talk to us.
From your own figures. Your array’s power draw in watts is multiplied by the hours in a year and by the facility overhead factor, then by your electricity price. The refresh assumption is the percentage of today’s power and space a replacement would use, which you can change. Modern all flash arrays are often far denser than the systems they replace, but measure your own estate.
We will talk you through third party maintenance honestly, including when it makes sense and when it does not. C4C is an official Dell Technologies, NetApp, HPE and VAST Data partner, tied to none, so we will also tell you when renewing or refreshing is the better answer, and we can supply and implement the refresh when it is.