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

HPE Nimble Storage vs VxRail comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (16th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
HPE Nimble Storage
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (7th)
VxRail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
130
Ranking in other categories
HCI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

All-Flash Storage
HCI
 

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.
Rami Jadallah - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades
The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.

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 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."
"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."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"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."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The interaction with VMware is most valuable."
"The setup was very, very simple. When we got our AF5000, no kidding, we had it up in production within two hours"
"Some of the beneficial features I have found are the Block-level backups, the interface is easy to use, backups work well and the portal is functional."
"It has totally taken away a layer of time and effort, management-wise, from two engineers to give that time back into developing more solutions. It has provided us essentially with a platform to go away and be more creative, knowing that that is stable and can do whatever we chuck at it."
"Nimble Storage is a great storage solution which will give you a lot insight on the growth of your storage."
"Updates are very easy to do when the customer is connected to the internet."
"The fact that they offer free training is awesome. There are not very many vendors that do that."
"The solution is really stable."
"For me, the most valuable feature is in relation to the software updates."
"Dell owns the EMC, EMC owns VMware, and there are many other interconnections throughout the industry which allows a fully integrated solution from a technical perspective."
"The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN."
"The ease of deployment and management of the solution are the most valuable aspects of the product."
"We are very happy with the purchase, and it works well. It is fast. We went with the full-flash version, meaning that we have SSDs. So, we can build a Windows virtual machine in two minutes. We were surprised when we first tried to do that."
"One beneficial feature is that the solution can handle complex environments."
"The implementation was quick, we used a checklist and it took approximately one hour."
 

Cons

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"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."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"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."
"It is on the expensive side."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"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."
"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."
"I want to see the full integration with OneView. I know they have started it, but I haven't had a chance to look at and evaluate it."
"We face challenges with hardware delivery."
"We have had some stability issues with one array which has happened twice during subsequent software updates but is due to a bad Postgres database."
"The amount of firmware updates released seem excessive."
"HPE Nimble Storage could be improved with some critical application or servers."
"We are doing a hybrid and are moving some machines to Microsoft Azure to run in hybrid mode. We are checking the availability of extra software-defined storage so that we can configure it."
"A feature that would be a nice addition to the next release would be a filer option. A filer option so that you could connect the sim or NFS or chips like NetApp does for NAS functionality."
"We would like to see integrating with Nutanix. Currently, we are working on integrating the two to see if there is any value in doing so."
"The support charges for VxRail should be optimized and made cheaper."
"I would like better integration with VCF from VMware, which is the Cloud Foundation tool set, so we can easily provision servers very quickly."
"I wish for the performance environment to be improved."
"The search feature isn't good."
"It can be a bit complex for engineers who are new to it. There's a learning curve involved. They have to learn to operate it."
"Its price needs to be improved. It is very expensive. NSX should be licensed together. It will make the network virtualization layer more usable. It would be better if they come together in a bundle, not separately."
"During code upgrades, VxRail can be sensitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"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 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."
"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."
"We are paying for the licensing yearly."
"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."
"Its price is a little higher."
"There are no licensing costs for this solution."
"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."
"We pay a one-time fee for terabyte licenses, and the support is paid yearly."
"At about $200,000, this solution is a little bit pricey but it is more economical than others such as Nutanix or Cisco Hyperflex."
"We were expecting Dell EMC to bring us something that would work very quickly and easily, but also be at a reasonable price point, and they did."
"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."
"Price is a bit of a challenge, particularly if you want extra features or higher performance."
"I do not believe that the price should be lower, as I feel it to be reasonable."
"The price of VxRail highly depends on your design and your configuration. For example, if I connect Pure Storage directly to ESXi hosts and bypass Fiber Channel switches and I will save on money. However, it reduces my redundancy and makes it not as robust of deployment and easy to manage. An HCI environment, it's more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN. With storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much. I don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel Switches, because I have it all right there."
"We pay for annual support from VxRail."
"Compare it to what you spent on your last solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not bein...
How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company ...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Nimble Storage
VCE VxRail
 

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
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Pure Storage and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.