HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera comparison

HPE Nimble Storage and HPE Primera are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. HPE Nimble Storage is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.1, while HPE Primera is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. HPE Nimble Storage holds a 2.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to HPE Primera’s 4.2% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of HPE Nimble Storage users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of HPE Primera users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

HPE Nimble Storage and HPE Primera are both in the storage systems category. HPE Nimble Storage seems to have the upper hand due to ease of use and cost-efficiency, while HPE Primera stands out with advanced features and performance.

Features: HPE Nimble Storage users value InfoSight predictive analytics, easy scalability, and integrated data protection. HPE Primera is recognized for robust performance, lower latency, and superior resiliency.

Room for Improvement: HPE Nimble Storage needs better performance during high I/O operations, enhanced integration with third-party tools, and more advanced features. HPE Primera could be more user-friendly, have better documentation for complex configurations, and offer simpler management options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Nimble Storage deployment is straightforward with excellent customer service support. HPE Primera deployment is more complex but manageable with proper vendor assistance.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Nimble Storage is praised for lower setup costs and positive ROI due to efficient performance and lower total cost of ownership. HPE Primera, though more expensive, offers significant ROI through enhanced performance and reduced downtime.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera

April 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 April 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.7%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 4.2%, down from 5.2% 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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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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Taufeeq Rauf

Head of IT at NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATION TECHNOLOGIES (PVT.) LTD.

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.

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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

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

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

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"They could probably improve an organization with just about anything. It is all a matter of ease of use, ease of the implementation, etc."

"Performance Integration with Commvault"

"It's given us more time to do the important things, less time worrying about SANs and failures and picking up the pieces. It just works."

"InfoSight has identified controller failures or performance issues."

"InfoSight provides real-time reporting, it gives you information about your different volumes, how the arrays are being used, I/O, performance in general."

"Nimble's phone-home capability is decent. The compression, dedupe, and caching are also solid. Generally, I like the simplicity. It's almost a set-and-forget solution."

"The most valuable feature is the management of Nimble Storage, InfoSight. This is like a cloud. That's really a very nice feature. I think that's the only reason to buy Nimble Storage."

"Even if one control fails, it automatically turns on the other controller and everything moves from one to the second instantaneously without any issues."

More HPE Nimble Storage pros

"The high availability was most valuable because they come with what's called 100% data availability. With special terms, they license and guarantee 100% data availability. That was probably one of the key features or components that HPE was offering with that model."

"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."

"HPE Primera provides me with system reliability and 100% data reliability. The storage is good and is consistently reliable and scalable, allowing me to use it whenever needed. The overall performance is great. The product is stable. The customer service and support is excellent. It's a commendable solution, especially suitable for online transactions. It is reliable in meeting data requirements."

"The performance of the solution is good."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Our customers have given very positive feedback about InfoSign, which is the management software for this solution."

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the artificial intelligence for the storage inside of the software and firmware because customers do not like functionalities which require manual interruption."

More HPE Primera pros

Cons

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

"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."

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

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

"HPE Nimble Storage provides only SAN-based storage and does not support NAS-based storage."

"The amount of firmware updates released seem excessive."

"The solution’s stability could be better. The tool’s pricing is high and depends on the partner."

"I don't think it is officially released yet, but the main reason that we chose Nimble is because of the sync rep feature. So, I would like to see that further evolve. This feature will be essential for our setups."

"I would like to see the network portion of the product improve, especially with some of the things which are coming out from Aruba and HPE. Both are innovating more of an automated networking. I would like to see our Nimble meld into that and do some automated networking."

"In the future, I would like to see a lower-end model that has Peer Persistence functionality."

"The scalability could be better."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

"The solution could improve by having seamless migration from other storage systems. The process should be made easier."

"On the hardware side, you should have the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers."

"The solution could prove the reporting."

"We have not had a good experience with support from HPE Primera. They can improve."

"On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities."

"They could work to make scalability easier."

"Some application solutions can be more acceptable on the HPE Primera site."

"There are certain features that require engineering-level access, which should be accessible to storage admins as well."

More HPE Primera cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"The product is expensive."

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

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

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

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"We don't require a license. If we used HPE InfoSight, then we would require a license, but for our needs, we don't need one."

"There are no licensing costs for this solution."

"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."

"My company has opted for HPE GreenLake payment model, meaning the billing is done on a quarterly basis."

"Our hybrid solution could do with some more competitive pricing and more scaled-down deployments. Already, the smallest one is too much for us. We would flourish by having a smaller unit."

"HPE Nimble Storage didn't require a license at the time."

"We paid about $80,000 for our permanent site licence."

"If you don't go cheap, it is eventually worth it. However, the initial investment is high."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

"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."

"HPE Primera is a little bit higher than Dell PowerStore...HPE Primera costs around 80,000 USD."

"The tool is expensive. I can say that HPE Primera is one of the costliest tools in the market."

"Because it has high availability, the cost is above average. The cost depends upon the sizing, and every customer has a different size. It is slightly above average in terms of cost compared to its competitors, but the value add was that they could know what their maintenance cost was going to be going forward. They knew what their renewal or expansion costs would be."

"The solution is quite cost-effective."

"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"The price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."

"The price of the solution should be cheaper."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Educational Organization

69%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

41%

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?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

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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

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...

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What do you like most about HPE Primera?

For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Primera?

The solution is quite cost-effective. HPE Primera is about a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than Dell NVMe.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 32% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

VMware vSAN vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Nimble Storage Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 35% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage

April 2025

Download HPE Nimble Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

April 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Also Known As

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

Nimble Storage

Primera

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

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

HPE introduces HPE Primera, a new storage platform designed to deliver superior simplicity, availability, and performance for mission-critical applications
HPE Primera advances the HPE Intelligent Data Platform, a portfolio of products and solutions designed to help customers transition from delivering storage to unlocking business value with intelligent data

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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

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Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera

April 2025

Free Report: HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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