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Dell Unity XT vs HPE Primera comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Dell Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Primera
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Unity XT is 7.3%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 4.2%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient data replication and fast IOPS have improved operational performance
Dell and a partner jointly implemented this solution in Auvink. We installed the Flash, which makes our IO operations fast and efficient. Replication is available, allowing us to replicate data simultaneously from one site to another. All-flash technology and vTXT enhance speed, and the IOPS are faster. The cache's IOPS are much better. Snapshots provide a unique feature for testing and make management more comfortable and easy. The platform is multi-supported and certification is more convenient and easy to manage.
Taufeeq Rauf - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a simple user interface and is useful for data replication
I use HPE Primera for mission-critical applications. My company uses the product as a storage solution for our machines. The availability of HPE Primera in our company is critical for us, considering that we operate in an HA environment where we can't have downtime since we need to deal with cheque clearance for banks. The product's interface is simple to use. I am satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The ease of use of the product's interface has directly had an impact on our company's operations, along with the improvement in the availability and performance of machines. Compared to HPE Primera, I work with a much more reliable storage solution like Dell PowerStore. Compared to HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore's features related to deduplication are very good, and it also offers a physical storage capacity of eight TB, which can be expanded up to forty TB. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it only after taking into consideration their usage and requirements. From the price and performance point of view, Dell PowerStore is a better choice. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"The most valuable thing for our use case is the flexibility to have multiple-protocol support."
"I like that when you log in it gives you a dashboard of what your storage looks like."
"Dell Unity XT is user-friendly and easy to use."
"Because I always need to trouble shooting for IOPS & database (DB) performance issues. I can quickly focus on what is part of the issue. I can decrease downtime and can plan next year's extended capacity budget."
"There has been no downtime. It has built-in redundancy upon redundancy."
"It is ease to use. It performs. It's easy to provision, and It's stable."
"The solution is so easy to manage that I forget it is there."
"The most valuable feature of Dell Unity XT is its support of protocols for both block, and file levels. It has the features a store solution should have."
"HPE Primera is scalable."
"HPE Primera is an all-flash storage product that's very stable and has a higher storage capacity. It can also give better ROI compared to NetApp."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"HPE Primera is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes."
"HPE Primera is used for shared storage."
"All of the capabilities of the hardware such as replication, snapshot, and the specific features are all included from the start as opposed to being on another license."
"The performance is very good."
"There has been a lot of changes in HPE Primera OS, and most of the time any package related to it is simple to upgrade. It does not require any support for the operation. The customer can easily deploy any code directly from the GUI which is very good. Additionally, we have individual storage we can allocate and easily manage."
 

Cons

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"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."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"It's an expensive solution, particularly for medium companies. One device costs about 30,000 euros. The support contract is quite expensive as well. We are currently looking for other lower-cost solutions."
"The pricing is a bit higher than expected."
"I called about an issue where I couldn't get VVOLs registered. It turns out it is a bug in the code and that there is no information about when it will be fixed. It's just not going to work. I was a little miffed about that."
"Sometimes the response time is higher than expected due to a lack of issues."
"The VNX reporting is much more granular, versus the Unity reporting."
"Dell Unity XT could add a unit-to-unit replication. We haven't seen that because we don't have an additional one to test. However, it is not an improvement, but something that we would like to have visibility on how it's done or how it works."
"It should be lighter. It takes up a ton of rack space. It would be nice to have a smaller footprint."
"We did encounter a firmware bug which actually caused loss of data. There was some heartburn around that. But in general, it has operated as expected, except for that bug."
"HPE Primera's pricing model is an area of concern and can be considered for improvement."
"The cost of HPE Primera could be lower."
"Only HPE can manage the product."
"On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities."
"We would like to have more flash storage and its stability. This is an area of challenge for us."
"The product's stale snapshots feature needs improvement."
"The price of the product is an area of concern. From an improvement perspective, the solution should be made more affordable in terms of price."
"We face challenges with false alarms, particularly daily alerts related to replication link breaks. I'm not happy with the customer service and support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is expensive."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"This solution offers great pricing."
"While it has a good price to start, they could always make it cheaper."
"The pricing is reasonable. We're using the Flex on Demand pricing. It's really good for us when we pay for what we use. It made it easy to get it inside since it's an OpEx and instead of CapEx expense."
"The pricing was quite okay compared to others. We probably got it cheaper because we were the first ones out of the gate, but I would say that it's good value for the money."
"The only improvement would be a lower cost per unit/disks, however on the whole we are very pleased with this product."
"We looked at HPE Nimble but the price of the Unity XT was very good compared to the competition."
"For costing, you have to have a budget in mind because SANs can be fairly expensive and EMC offers a wide range of products."
"The return on the investment was simply speeding up our entire vSphere stack, which allowed our developers and engineers to get their workloads done faster and simpler. We were experiencing VM snapshot times of 45 minutes to two or three hours, and it shrunk it down to under five minutes."
"HPE Primera is a little bit higher than Dell PowerStore...HPE Primera costs around 80,000 USD."
"The pricing for HDD was good."
"I rate the product's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"There is only a one-time license purchase needed and no additional costs. If HP could reduce the training cost, then that would be advantageous to the seller."
"The license for HPE Primera is all-inclusive."
"The cost is $75,000 for a three-year contract."
"I believe HPE Primera and Pure Storage are similar in price."
"The solution is cost-effective. I rate it an eight out of ten, with ten being excellent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
65%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
3%
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
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...
What's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?
HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspectiv...
What do you like most about HPE Primera?
For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
Primera
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. HPE Primera and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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