It's definitely more of an appliance than a storage array in that sense. So from a "set it and forget it" mentality, it definitely is there.
Senior Systems Engineer at Applies Computer Technologies
The most valuable features are ease-of-use and integration with VMware.
Pros and Cons
- "Definitely ease-of-use. I've experienced many different arrays out there and Nimble is definitely there."
- "I would like to see integration with OneView, at least for reporting or some sort of monitoring."
How has it helped my organization?
What is most valuable?
Definitely ease-of-use. I've experienced many different arrays out there and Nimble is definitely there. The analytic side is very helpful on their info site. Integration with VMware is easy. There are not any additional appliance plug-ins to load beyond the basics. It works well.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see integration with OneView, at least for reporting or some sort of monitoring. Basic stuff like that would be nice. I can't think of any area that is lacking for what we use it for.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very stable.
Buyer's Guide
HPE Nimble Storage
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about HPE Nimble Storage. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.
How are customer service and support?
I have used technical support. It is excellent. The best.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have a slew of HPE products. Since we were a partner with Nimble prior to the acquisition, it was natural for us to use and sell their products.
How was the initial setup?
I was involved in the initial setup. It was very straightforward.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We only evaluated HPE. Our previous experience has a bearing on which vendor we choose. In terms of Nimble, I did a thorough technical evaluation and had discussions with the vendor and with Nimble themselves at the time. My questions were answered.
What other advice do I have?
Try it. They have a VSA, so they have a virtual appliance. I don't know what the options are for testing it that way, but if there is an option to do a PoC, then give it a shot.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We were a partner with Nimble prior to the HPE acquisition.
Vice President Tech Operations at Ten-X, LLC
Gives us hybrid storage at an affordable cost.
What is most valuable?
The Nimble solution gives us hybrid storage at an affordable cost. We use it in our corporate IT environment. It's fast relatively easy to implement.
What needs improvement?
All-flash arrays.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. I don't think we've had a failure since we've had it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's much easier. We compared it to Sentry, where we had to do forty-two upgrades for more space. Nimble just keeps letting us add arrays over and over.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have used technical support and they are very good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to use Sentry and we switched to Nimble. It was a Greenfield solution. When choosing a solution for storage venues, which is what I do now, the main elements have to be reliability and support. This is our game. Nimble is now a part of HPE and they just beat out the others.
How was the initial setup?
I was involved in the setup and it was very fast.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is excellent.
What other advice do I have?
Look at Nimble. It fits that median point of "I want something better than my own, home-grown solution", and "I don't to buy a product that is too expensive." It is squarely in the middle.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
HPE Nimble Storage
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about HPE Nimble Storage. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IT Director at a consumer goods company with 501-1,000 employees
We have multiple database servers on the SAN that require low latency for optimal performance. This configuration allows us to run the database without over allocating memory to them.
What is most valuable?
- Hybird configuration
- SSD Cache
These features keep the cost per IO and Gig low while giving very good performance. We have multiple database servers on the SAN that require low latency for optimal performance. This configuration allows us to run the database without over allocating memory to them.
How has it helped my organization?
Eliminated all IO bottlenecks, reduced from 6 SANs to 1.
What needs improvement?
Admin interface can be slow.
For how long have I used the solution?
Two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues scaling.
How are customer service and technical support?
Support is great, they understand that they can’t live in a bubble. They understand virtualization and other applications.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Yes, Dell EqualLogic. Cost per IO and Gig. Stability.
How was the initial setup?
Very straightforward, up in running and in testing first day.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is straightforward, no hidden costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Yes, Dell, EMC, Hitachi, NetApp, Pure Storage.
What other advice do I have?
If you test it yourself, it is clear how it just beats every other product hands down.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Director, Global IT Infrastructure at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
We get proactive notifications of issues instead of us having to monitor the solution.
What is most valuable?
InfoSight is such a wonderful tool and given us insight we’ve never had into our storage environment.
The ‘insight’ into our equipment is fantastic. And their support is old-school, which means that they do an awesome job at being proactive.
InfoSight is such a wonderful tool and given us insight we’ve never had into our storage environment.
Being able to forecast growth and analysis at this level is not possible on our NetApp without a significant investment.
How has it helped my organization?
We can forecast when we need to invest in additional storage instead of the former, very manual effort.
We have had excellent support experience with their techs and get proactive notifications of issues instead of us having to monitor the solution.
What needs improvement?
There have been a couple of instances where we discovered previously unreported bugs.
For how long have I used the solution?
One year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No problems.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No problems.
How are customer service and technical support?
Excellent support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used NetApp before, Nimble was a better architecture for us and we receive better support than with the NetApp support team
How was the initial setup?
Straighforward setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If you have a logo they want, they get very aggressive with pricing to have that marketing collateral.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
NetApp.
What other advice do I have?
You will be very impressed – we didn’t know we had a latency issue on our email system until we were in the process of putting it into production. It was great that the Nimble could provide us an instant benefit.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
President at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
They're pricey for what the hardware/software is, but they're definitely worth it if you're in a high IOPS environment.
What is most valuable?
The SSD caching and the snapshots within the array are unlike any other product I've ever worked with. Restoring VM's is VERY simple.
How has it helped my organization?
The SSD caching ensures VM performance is top notch 24/7 regardless of how much I/O the VM requires.
What needs improvement?
I'd love to be able to put larger spindles into the unit, but I get that that is how they make their money, by selling you a larger unit.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used it for five years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We ran into some blue screen issues when using Hyper-V, however, with VMware it works perfectly.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
None so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's hard for Nimble to compare with the largest EMC stuff, but, I'm not entirely sure that they're after that segment of EMC's market.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
It's top notch.
Technical Support:It's top notch.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to push Dell/Equallogic stuff, but the limited performance and lack of value caused us to look elsewhere.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is by far the most straightforward setup I have ever worked with in the SAN space.
What about the implementation team?
My first unit was a demo unit that we used internally and setup on our own. Now we're a reseller of Nimble.
What was our ROI?
In terms of value, it's immediate. All VM's instantly noticed a drastic performance increase over the old Dell stuff.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From one perspective they're pricey for what the hardware/software is, but they're definitely worth it if you're in a high IOPS environment. In fact they're a very cost effective solution when pinned against the competitors.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Everything from NetApp, EMC, Dell/Equallogic, and even QNAP. It's really no contest when you learn about the architecture in detail.
What other advice do I have?
Definitely have a sales engineer give you a demo/explanation of the technology.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're a partner/Tech Enthusiast.
Sr. Sys. Server & Storage Egineer / Tech .Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
A scalable and easy-to-deploy solution that enables continuous monitoring and administration of storage
Pros and Cons
- "InfoSight is a valuable feature."
- "The solution could reduce its price."
What is our primary use case?
The solution can be used for SAP HANA applications and some Linux-based databases. Our customers use it for SUSE Linux.
What is most valuable?
InfoSight is a valuable feature. It enables 24/7 monitoring and administration of our storage. Whenever there is a fault, the user will be alerted. It is a 100% customer satisfaction-based experience. Everything is on the dashboard.
What needs improvement?
The solution could reduce its price.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the solution for the past three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I didn't see any failure so far.
I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have around 180 users.
I rate the product’s scalability a ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The intervention of the technical support is only to facilitate parts replacement. InfoSight gives the user information like predictive failure and faulty parts. The vendor is then notified about it.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is simple. HPE makes every deployment simple and easy to integrate. It takes us two to three hours to deploy the product because everything is connected over the internet. We need internet connectivity for the deployment.
What about the implementation team?
We need only one engineer to deploy the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We can choose between a yearly license fee or once in three years. The solution’s pricing is reasonable for the features that it provides.
What other advice do I have?
I haven't checked the latest version of Nimble yet. Maybe there will be lots of improvements after the 2019 version. It is a good solution. I recommend it. My recommendation depends on what the customer needs. Sometimes, customers overdo the specifications. Sometimes they need only SaaS-based storage.
Customers should know what they need and what applications are running on it. Then, the partners can recommend a solution accordingly. Customers should not take the specification directly to the supplier. They should ask the partners. Partners would give cost-effective recommendations.
Overall, I rate the product a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
Business Systems Specialist at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Remote replication for disaster recovery is the primary use of the array.
What is most valuable?
Remote replication for disaster recovery is the primary use of the array. As we get further along in our implementation and are more familiar with the product, we intend to use the cloning features to create development and test environments.
How has it helped my organization?
In the past, our virtual servers had been deployed to on-board storage. By using an array, we are able to more easily manage and increase our storage capacities. In the future, we intend to use zero-copy cloning to reduce the time to deploy test environments.
What needs improvement?
So far, the only area I have noticed that requires improvement is the ability to console directly to the device. The device is supplied with a special adapter that requires a female-to-female serial cable. If standard cables (preferably USB) cannot be used, then complete solutions should be provided with the device.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the storage array in production for about six months. We are in the process of migrating all our virtual servers to the array and configuring replication to the DR site.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have not encountered any no stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have not encountered any scalability issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support has been fantastic. Questions have been answered accurately and in a timely manner.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
At one point, we used NetApp. We found it expensive, especially with the storage overhead required. The Nimble product was significantly less expensive and management was simpler.
How was the initial setup?
We used sub-contractors for the initial setup but saw that the process was relatively simple. As with all technologies, there are many different ways of configuring the devices depending on intended usage. We found that we changed some things as we progressed through the implementation. Overall, the implementation has been relatively painless.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate alternatives.
What other advice do I have?
If you have the budget; go for it. As with any storage, don't under-buy, you'll always need more.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
VP - Engineering Operations at WPG Consulting
Robust, reliable, and problem-free
Pros and Cons
- "Even if one control fails, it automatically turns on the other controller and everything moves from one to the second instantaneously without any issues."
- "If they could reduce the cost, that would be ideal."
What is most valuable?
In general, the solution works great. We haven't had any issues with it.
It's very reliable. Even if one control fails, it automatically turns on the other controller and everything moves from one to the second instantaneously without any issues.
The product is quite robust.
What needs improvement?
Nimble is costlier than EqualLogic, for example. If they could reduce the cost, that would be ideal.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been dealing with the solution for the last three years. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been very stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have dealt with technical support, and we haven't had any issues with them. We are satisfied with the level of support on offer.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I'm also familiar with EqualLogic.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution is a little high, although the performance is very good.
What other advice do I have?
We are resellers.
We are using the most up-to-date version of the solution, however, I cannot speak to the exact version number.
I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. We haven't had any issues.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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Updated: November 2024
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Nice review. Nimble has improved with All Flash arrays and we just implemented an AF5000. Great device and fast. Dedupe is also excellent.