Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

HPE Nimble Storage vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Sponsored
 

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
34
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
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
6.9
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
NAS (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (4th)
 

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 HPE Nimble Storage is 3.8%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 7.6%, up 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 FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"Good architecture and produces a lot of IOPS."
"Any updates are just part of your subscription, so you don't have to buy add-ons for new features. You're continually adding value to it."
"We get storage access without the need for more human monitoring of those resources."
"I really like the form factor, which is nice and compact and small."
"It has allowed us to upgrade our DMS to the latest version and reuse the older array as the DR storage for VMware SRM."
"The tool’s support is feasible."
"Its speed, ease of use, and it has been completely reliable."
"The all-flash positions our organization for growth. It is much easier to use, and we do not have to worry about the I/O profile of the workloads that we putting on the array."
"The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system."
"The most valuable feature is reliability."
"The power systems are very reliable if you are running 24/7 operations. For ongoing mission-critical applications, it's the best solution."
"IBM FlashSystem has been stable in our operations."
"No queuing and high ops, speed, and performance."
"The solution allows for easy migrations from previous products or vendors via its embedded storage virtualization function."
"The performance of the All-Flash System is very good. There is more enhanced performance and data production in the solution, which I appreciate."
"Speed (IOPS/second) – It is most vital for applications that need low latency and high speed for transferring the data."
 

Cons

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"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 software layer has to improve."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"We need better data deduplication."
"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."
"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."
"If they could reduce the cost, that would be ideal."
"The solution could reduce its price."
"I really would like to see synchronous replication. This is something that when we have multiple arrays in our environment and being able to do something like a zero RPO."
"I wish they would put the InfoSight page back the way it was. I got in it for the first time about two years ago, and it looked the same for about a year and a half. Then, about six months ago, it changed. There are different options now. I can still get to where I need to go, but it feels like it takes longer, where before it didn't. Also, I felt like I had a lot more options before. I have to do a lot more to digging now to get to where I need to go. I just wish they had their old page back."
"There should be faster interfaces."
"In the future, I would like to see a lower-end model that has Peer Persistence functionality."
"You could argue that it would be preferable if everything were cheaper in order to save taxpayer money."
"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."
"With regards to the IBM V7000 storage system, where we have multiple tiers of storage, a heat map would show I/O distribution across the tiers of storage."
"The technical support in my region is satisfactory but it could improve. Support is very important for customers and downtime is very critical for us. We would like onsite or complete technical support which can help us to minimize our downtime or if problems occur."
"IBM could do more marketing and improve brand awareness. I had never heard of this product until a colleague told me about it. FlashSystem could add a few features, but it would probably increase the price. For example, Pure Storage offers instant snapshotting and partitioning. That would be nice to have, but I think the cost would go up."
"The security features can be improved such that the encryption does not affect performance in any way."
"The customer's expectations are what they get on the cloud, they're expecting even in the on-premises deployments, going forward."
"IBM FlashSystems is lagging in optimizing storage technologies."
"The data reduction pool feature sucks and is not recommended for use with heavy workloads."
"The price is very costly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"There is a monthly fee to use the solution."
"Its price is a little higher."
"Competitive. No licensing. Since everything is included."
"If we had stuck with EMC, we would have spent a lot more. We have EMC in-house, we have a bunch of them. Switching to Nimble saved me millions of dollars over the past three years... Nimble fills a need for performance within a budget that is in the sub-million dollar range."
"The pricing is expensive, although we do not pay anything in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"There are no licensing fees, it is a one-time purchase of the IBM FlashSystem."
"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."
"The integration is already included in the license cost of IBM FlashSystem. The integration is very easy. You get the IBM storage core with all software, firmware, and upgrades. EMC provides the features in the box, but they are not free for customers. There is a licensing cost for features. We have yearly licensing, but IBM has also provided a new option where you pay as you go. They provide a big box, and I pay, for example, for 10 terabytes. If I exceed 10 terabytes, IBM will charge for the new storage after 10 terabytes. It is a good opportunity in the market for using the storage as a cloud and paying as you go."
"Our customers would like IMB FlashSystem to be less expensive."
"I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable."
"This solution is expensive compared to other solutions."
"I price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable and competitive."
"The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
65%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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?
Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive.
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?
There is room for improvement in the troubleshooting part, specifically related to IBM Spectrum for Insight. Customer...
 

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.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.