HPE Primera vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.7. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 4.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and HPE Primera are both leading enterprise storage solutions. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe has the upper hand in performance and scalability, whereas HPE Primera stands out due to its data protection and reliability.

Features: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is highlighted for its high-speed performance, scalability, and NVMe technology. HPE Primera receives positive feedback for its advanced data protection, efficiency in handling mixed workloads, and automated management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe users suggest enhancements in integration capabilities with third-party tools, improved documentation, and better customer support. HPE Primera users seek improvements in the complexity of configuration, a more intuitive user interface, and reduced deployment time.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is noted for its straightforward deployment but receives mixed feedback on customer service responsiveness. HPE Primera offers a more complex deployment but excels in providing excellent customer service support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe users find the initial setup cost reasonable and report a good return on investment. HPE Primera, though slightly more expensive upfront, is valued for its long-term ROI due to its reliability and features.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

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 Primera is 4.2%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 0.5%, up from 0.5% 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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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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Mohamed-Hassan

Microfinance at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Steady performance, responsive support, and high availability

If we add a shell, the scalability depends on a legacy protocol and not the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe which is a setback. At the previous bank, I worked at we had approximately 9,000 users. We are using the solution at its full capacity. I rate the scalability of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe 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

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"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 latency is good."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"I appreciate the performance."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The performance of the solution is good."

"HPE Primera is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes."

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

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

"HPE Primera is stable."

"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."

"The interface is simplified."

"In my opinion, HPE is making good progress and moving ahead with InfoSight, which is predictive analytics and artificial intelligence."

More HPE Primera pros

"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."

"The solution is more available for IOPS warehousing, resolving issues, and reporting than other products."

"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."

"IBM FlashSystem provides the same software on each box, including virtualized solutions."

"It is a very stable solution."

"It is a very stable product. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten because we did not face any issues in the last three years."

"The most valuable feature is the speed."

"The FlashCore modules support more value to the architecture due to their unique characteristics."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

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

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"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 tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"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."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"HPE Primera's deduplication area is not as good as the one offered by Dell PowerStore, making it an area where improvements are required."

"The pricing is very high."

"The initial setup is not straightforward."

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

"HPE Primera is not good enough as a storage solution as it does not provide a good NAS storage."

"There are certain shortcomings in the technical support offered by HPE where improvements are required."

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

"This solution would be expensive for small business and it could be priced more competitively for that market."

More HPE Primera cons

"I would like to see IBM products become more affordable because they can be quite expensive, which limits their accessibility to a broader customer base."

"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."

"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."

"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."

"There is a tool provided by IBM for repairing batteries which can only be utilized by those who have an IBM technical advisor under service contract. However, for individuals who do not have such a contract, the tool can be difficult to use and requires a zip file copy. I believe that it would be greatly beneficial if the tool were made more user-friendly and accessible for all individuals who need to repair batteries."

"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."

"In the future, the limitation is upgrading the same storage by adding a shelf to the desk. There is a limitation in the backend connection between the storage and extended shelf."

"The ZIO interface could be improved."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

"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."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"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 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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"HPE Primera service is cost-effective."

"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."

"From what I see, this is competitively-priced and HPE are doing their best to stay competitive."

"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 price to capacity ratio is good."

"Licensing fees are billed on a yearly basis and the cost of GreenLake service is included."

"HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"The solution is priced well."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"It's a lot less costly than cloud storage. People get surprised by the cost of cloud storage, which is extremely expensive and four or five times the cost of storage on-premises. People don't realize what they're spending on storage until they start getting bills from Amazon, Microsoft, and others. This is a good way to reduce your cloud storage expenses."

"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."

"The product has an average cost."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."

"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe 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

41%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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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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'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 do you like most about IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves ne...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The tool is expensive, though I do not know the specific licensing costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could al...

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

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 35% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 36% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 31% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

April 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

April 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe product report

Also Known As

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

Primera

IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100

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 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

IBM FlashSystem 9100 combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize - all in a powerful 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multicloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage allowing you to easily add in the multicloud solutions that best support your business.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

April 2025

Free Report: HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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