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HPE Nimble Storage vs IBM FlashSystem 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
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
HPE Nimble Storage
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
NAS (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 3.1%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.7%, down from 6.9% 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.
Ajit Pratap Kundan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Raanan Sitton - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effective storage for small companies with budget constraints
IBM FlashSystem 5300 is offered at a very low cost in Israel, which is advantageous for small companies. However, other features like deduplication and compression do not perform effectively. The price sensitivity makes it a viable option for clients with budgetary constraints, as it allows us to secure deals based on the cost rather than advanced performance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The solution is scalable."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"Nimble Storage is a great storage solution which will give you a lot insight on the growth of your storage."
"InfoSight provides real-time reporting, it gives you information about your different volumes, how the arrays are being used, I/O, performance in general."
"This product is very easy to set up."
"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."
"InfoSight has allowed us to centralize our management, understanding how it correlates to the array. It has identified a network issue in the network configuration of ESXi hosts. It enables us to get servers back up faster by 25 percent."
"The management software that runs in the cloud is called InfoSight and it is very good. It is similar to machine learning software that monitors your hardware."
"Deduplication and compression."
"InfoSight has identified controller failures or performance issues."
"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, which together, enable you to have more space."
"No queuing and high ops, speed, and performance."
"The most valuable feature is that is supports a high IOPS rate."
"The all-flash storage has tier replication capabilities."
"The performance of IBM FlashSystem is very good. The new technology and high throughput have given us more confidence in the solution. The management of the system has improved and we can control the monitoring system alerts and multiple FlashSystems with the Enterprise Cloud Edition, which is free. The migration of recently stored data to a new flash is much easier. You can move your data because you can utilize it externally."
"Speed (IOPS/second) – It is most vital for applications that need low latency and high speed for transferring the data."
"We are a 100% satisfied with the stability of the solution."
"IBM FlashSystem is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The solution requires a higher availability."
"The way the market is going, supporting NVMe storage would be useful as a step up."
"They keep talking about doing one-to-many replication. This is what we'd like to see, just to help with data replication."
"The solution should allow for easier configurations."
"The scalability could be better."
"The solution’s stability could be better. The tool’s pricing is high and depends on the partner."
"We want to start storing data in the cloud really soon and we are looking at options."
"HPE Nimble Storage could be improved with some critical application or servers."
"GUI interface should be enhanced more as there is some issues in copy services."
"The security features can be improved such that the encryption does not affect performance in any way."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete volumes, especially if they are compressed or deduplicated."
"The price is very costly."
"One area for improvement is in the GUI, where host clusters are not properly dealt with. With Hypervisor host clusters, all hosts must see the same volumes in the same order. Using the concept of a “host-group” has been around (even with IBM) for many years, so why not with the V7000?"
"The pricing could be improved, but I think it's getting better and better with each version. IBM needs to implement NAS storage again, as this is a big flaw. Dell EMC is very good at this and if you compared them based on NAS storage, Dell EMC would win right away. IBM's solution for NAS storage is very complicated. We don't have a storage box that provides file sharing from itself, we have to put software on it and go through a whole complicated process. It should be simplified."
"The solution is quite expensive. That's one of the downsides to using it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"There is a monthly fee to use the solution."
"HPE Nimble Storage didn't require a license at the time."
"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 is more expensive than some of the other solutions, such as Pure Storage. They charge more for every feature than other vendors."
"We pay a one-time fee for terabyte licenses, and the support is paid yearly."
"It is a CAPEX investment. Over the anticipated lifespan, I would say the pricing is $10,000 a month."
"The pricing is better than some of the competitors, such as Dell EMC."
"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."
"We have no issues with the price as it is very competitive."
"There are no licensing fees, it is a one-time purchase of the IBM FlashSystem."
"It pays to go back and get the best price you can from your supplier. The first offer is not always at the best discount."
"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."
"The price is a little bit high so is rated a six out of ten."
"My customers got the IBM FlashSystem bundle offer. It was a one-time purchase for three years of service. The price would depend on the storage size and could reach between $25,000 to $55,000."
"Overall the price of the solution is expensive and this includes the license."
"Regarding licensing make sure you add at least three years software maintenance from IBM at the beginning, because you will not be able to download firmware updates or any fixes/patches without this."
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Comparison Review

it_user277539 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 30, 2015
Hybrid storage, all-flash storage, and hyper-converged products offer software capable of running on commodity hardware, providing a better end-user experience at a reduced price.
Originally posted at https://www.freeitdata.com/ Over the last 15 years, the storage industry has primarily been dominated (market share) by six companies, EMC, NetApp, IBM, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), HP and Dell. In 2013, these six companies made up approximately 85% of all storage sold in the…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
67%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

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 ...
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...
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 do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?
The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?
Many factors affect purchasing directly from IBM, often involving a multi-step process. Customers, especially in bank...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?
The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete ...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Nimble Storage
IBM Storwize
 

Overview

 

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
Celero, Friedhelm Loh Group, Clarks, Mingkang Natregro Health Food Group, Sofia, Etisalat Fights Fraud, UF Health Shands Hospital, Generali, Elecon Engineering Company Limited, Ventiv , Technology, CPFL Energia, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., SciQuest, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Paddy Power, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Interconnect Services, Severstal IP-Only AB, PVU Group GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.