Dell PowerMax NVMe vs HPE Nimble Storage comparison

Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8. Dell Technologies holds a 3.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 99% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

HPE Nimble Storage and Dell PowerMax NVMe offer advanced storage solutions. Dell PowerMax NVMe is considered superior due to its performance and reliability, which users find worth the investment.

Features: HPE Nimble Storage is praised for its integrated data protection, efficient storage utilization, and seamless scalability. Dell PowerMax NVMe stands out with its high performance, low latency, and advanced machine learning capabilities. Users note Dell PowerMax NVMe's superior speed and data efficiency.

Room for Improvement: HPE Nimble Storage users point out the need for improved cloud integration and more robust analytics. Dell PowerMax NVMe users suggest enhancements in ease of use and simplification of management. Both products require more intuitive configuration, but Dell PowerMax NVMe's complexity is a bigger concern.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Nimble Storage has a straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. Dell PowerMax NVMe, although more complex to set up, benefits from comprehensive documentation and strong technical support. Users find HPE Nimble Storage quicker to deploy, while Dell PowerMax NVMe's customer service is highly effective in resolving issues.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Nimble Storage is recognized for its cost-effectiveness and quicker ROI. Dell PowerMax NVMe, though more expensive, delivers robust performance that justifies the higher cost, with users noting a significant long-term ROI. Pricing may deter some users initially, but Dell PowerMax NVMe's advanced features and reliability can provide better value over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Nimble Storage Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Nimble Storage

January 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax NVMe is 3.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 3.8%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Haseeb Khalid Sheikh

Senior Manager Enterprise Solutions at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

End-to-end NVMe capabilities helps improve availability, performance, and capacity

The solution's most valuable feature is the data reduction ratio. You can store a 5:1 ratio of your data in Dell PowerMax NVMe. For example, if you have 200 terabytes of usable capacity, you can save up to five times of data on that capacity. That means you can save one petabyte of data on just 200 terabytes of usable capacity. The solution's end-to-end NVMe capabilities have improved our operations. Everything is fast, and you don't have to map your storage to old hybrid storage technologies. Our organization has experienced positive change, and the solution has improved our uptime, availability, performance, and capacity.

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Ajit Pratap Kundan

PreSales Lead- Government & Defense at Accops Systems Pvt Ltd

A tool that offers protection against ransomware and other enterprise-level attacks

HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high, making it one of its downsides. HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high compared with any HCI solutions, like HPE's SimpliVity, Nutanix, VMware, or Dell VxRail. A person requires a special skill set to operate HPE Nimble Storage because there are hardly any solutions similar to Nimble Storage in the market. The product's support can be made faster and more responsive if HPE trains its partners in such a way that they acquire more expertise on Nimble Storage through the training sessions. HPE Nimble Storage is dependent on only VMware vSphere Hypervisor. In the future, HPE has to make Nimble Storage feasible with other hypervisors like Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix Acropolis, and RHEV, meaning it should be hypervisor agnostic.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"I appreciate the performance."

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"The solution is scalable."

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication."

"The smaller footprint of the device has been really nice. We have gone from eight bays to one bay. Having one floor tile in our data center has been pretty awesome. A lot less power and HVAC cooling is being consumed."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the data reduction ratio."

"I would rate my experience with the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy."

"I have been highly satisfied with the resiliency and scalability of the solution."

"The speed and the compatible interface with IBM are the most valuable features of the PowerMax product."

"It was easy for teams to pick up the technology with very limited exposure and training, then implement and support it."

"It is efficient and very simple for our administrators to use."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pros

"Even through upgrades, there is no downtime, not even a hiccup for users."

"Its speed, ease of use, and it has been completely reliable."

"Not only is it high performing, but it is also more compact and fits better in our storage arrays than equipment from other storage providers."

"Our virtual admins are able to take control of Nimble and know how to allocate the storage, whenever it is required, thus reducing time."

"The deduplication and compression capabilities are powerful."

"Performance, reliability, InfoSight, the ability to upgrade the O/S on the SAN without taking it down, and cost."

"I use InfoSight quite a bit. It works well. It allows you to get some insight into what's happening in your environment immediately, instead of having to send things off and having them analyzed and sent back to you."

"There are a lot of redundancies in all the right areas, so it is pretty stable."

More HPE Nimble Storage pros

Cons

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"We brought up this question to the implementation engineer. We were comparing use cases where a customer is using RecoverPoint, then goes to PowerMax. In our previous setup with XtremIO, we were using RecpverPoint and keeping snapshots for 30 days, every few seconds. With PowerMax, I requested this for every 15 minutes, keeping it for a week. The engineer's answer was, "There will be too many snapshots. It might slow down the system." This is specifically for the use cases where there is RecoverPoint. While PowerMax works with RecoverPoint, and you can use it, there should be some way where you can have even more snapshots and not to worry about performance and system cache."

"There is some room to grow, especially with some of the installation quirks."

"There are some stability issues that we just recently experienced. We hope the next release will solve these problems."

"The solution should include more AI features to make it smarter."

"There is also room for improvement in the PowerMax architecture and hardware itself. They should design the PowerMax on the basis of PCIe 4.0. I would like to see the possibility of an NVMe drive that operates on PCIe 4.0 and not PCIe 3.0."

"Remove the need for physical or hardwired virtual servers to run consistency groups, instead make the expensive array controllers handle that."

"The one area for improvement in Dell PowerMax NVMe would be to align the features of the on-premises version with those available in the cloud, as this would provide added value and flexibility."

"I would like to see the rack change. They have defaulted to the standard rack, so our fiber cables are crowded when we shut our back door."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe cons

"The solution requires a higher availability."

"I would like deduplication by default on all the volumes. I still don't understand (or know why) dedupe isn't enabled for the templates out-of-the-box. We have to go in and manually enable it each and every time."

"I think the scalability of HPE Nimble Storage could be improved."

"More reporting is probably the only thing that is really lacking. It would be helpful to go to the business and say, "This is how we've evolved with our solution, and this is why we need more." Being able to put forward a business case with data to back it up, essentially."

"The backup solution that they are using now probably has not been deduped."

"The scalability could be better."

"I would like to see more advanced analytics in the next release of this solution."

"The dashboard can be improved."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"In terms of price-performance, it beat out other competitors when we were taking a look and comparing it to the market. That was one of the biggest driving points for us."

"The price is okay."

"I rate Dell PowerMax NVMe a five out of ten for pricing."

"Support pricing is very high. Our support contract is about to expire and Dell EMC provided us with an extremely high renewal quote. It was four times more than the support contract for our previous EMC VNX solution."

"I think it is an expensive tool, but it is the best product. I think it is expensive and the cost one must pay for the best solution."

"From a general capital investment, it's one of the higher price points in the market. It depends on the size and software features that you would include in a system. So, the cost varies dramatically."

"The price is really high."

"From reclaiming data center space which is so tightly constrained these days, it will pay for itself in a short amount of time, which is fantastic. Anything we can do to get more out of our current physical data center space helps us a ton, and PowerMax has helped enable that."

More Dell PowerMax NVMe pricing and cost advice

"There is a one-time price for hardware, and with the software support, everything is included, such as software upgrades. The licensing of the solution is included in the cost of the hardware and the support is an extra cost. We have purchased support on an annual basis, but you can purchase support up front for up to seven years. We usually buy five years and near the time of the expiry, we sometimes extend it."

"The first two that I bought were incredibly expensive, compared to the last five to seven that I have bought. The price has come way down, and it has been a year or so since we bought one."

"It is very pricey. You pay for what you get, and this storage solution is great. It is well worth the cost."

"I would classify it as an expensive product."

"It is more expensive than one of its competitors."

"The solution is a little pricey compared to others on the market."

"The solution’s licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The price is negotiable and when we first received the quote it was expensive, but after dealing with them and receiving a discount, the price is reasonable."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Educational Organization

66%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.

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What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?

Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?

First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?

The price of Dell PowerMax depends on the project size. It is the best choice for large projects in terms of price an...

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How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...

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Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?

HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...

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What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?

The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 38% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 27% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax NVMe

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell PowerMax NVMe Competitors

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 17% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Nimble Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe

January 2025

Download Dell PowerMax NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage

January 2025

Download HPE Nimble Storage product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

Nimble Storage

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

Dell PowerMax is the industry’s most secure mission-critical storage platform. With NVMe Dynamic Fabric technology, PowerMax breaks from traditional storage limitations, enabling seamless integration with cloud-native and legacy applications. Designed with a powerful scale-up and scale-out architecture, PowerMax supports mission-critical applications at scale with zero downtime and ultra-low latency. The latest PowerMaxOS 10 release harnesses AI-driven efficiencies for trusted performance, capacity, and security. By choosing PowerMax, you can trust in a secure, intelligent, and always modern storage solution that unlocks the full potential of your data to drive business success.

Dell Technologies

HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective All-Flash Storage Array solution that aims to enable organizations to reliably store and access their data. Organizations across a wide variety of industries trust Nimble Storage to assist them with all of their data storage-based needs. It both tracks all of the IT architecture that an organization uses and protects that architecture from a variety of digital threats.

HPE Nimble Storage Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy HPE Nimble Storage include:

Increased security. Nimble Storage provides organizations with powerful layers of protection. It leverages predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep businesses from suffering harm related to emerging threats. The AI and ML software identifies threats before they can threaten a user’s data.

Reduced costs and increase profits. Businesses that deploy Nimble Storage find that their overhead costs end up being significantly reduced by up to 49%. One of the reasons for this is that Nimble Storage uses a “pay as you go” subscription model which means that users never pay for more storage than they actually need.

Ease of use. Nimble Storage is simple for administrators to utilize. They can install it without any kind of outside assistance. It is also simple for the average administrator to manage without specialized training.

HPE Nimble Storage Features

Artificial intelligence. The backbone of Nimble Storage’s IT infrastructure is its AI software. The HPE InfoSight feature makes it so that administrators don’t need to make guesses when managing their data storage. It offers users suggestions as to what they can do to improve their storage performance.

Scaling. Nimble Storage gives users the ability to scale their data storage so that it appropriately meets their needs. They can both “scale up” or increase the sheer amount of data that they can store at a given time and “scale out” or increase their ability to perform effectively.

Hybrid storage. Nimble Storage has the ability to store data both on the cloud and on-premises so as to meet an organization’s storage requirements. Its multi-cloud feature enables users to seamlessly manage all of their data storage and utilization operations with ease.

Reviews from Real Users

HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ease of use and its powerful InfoSight analytics feature.

Andrew B., Head Of Information Technology at Zambia National Building Society, writes, “It's a very easy solution. Whenever I have a question, I find they have already provided a solution for it.”

Prataparao D., Technical Solution's Consultant for HPE Storage Devices at Karvy Innotech, says, “HPE Nimble Storage uses the InfoSight platform and it is useful because we can identify the faults and can analyze the performance. It has many other features. This feature is the best that I have observed from HPE Nimble Storage.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Ace Relocation, Atkins Nutritionals, Berkeley Research Group, Canadian International School, City of Hot Springs, Clackamas County, Corona-Norco Unified School District, Ideal Integrations, Linear Technology, P&O Maritime, Retail Apparel Group (RAG), Virtual Radiologic

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Nimble Storage

January 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Nimble Storage

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