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DDN IntelliFlash vs HPE Nimble Storage 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
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
DDN IntelliFlash
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
30th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (12th)
HPE Nimble Storage
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
9th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.5%, down from 6.1% 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.
Anil Rahulwar - PeerSpot reviewer
Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments
It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"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."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."
"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"
"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."
"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."
"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."
"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."
"The fact that you can manage the requirements is one the most valuable features of HPE Nimble Storage. The other is the rapid deployment time."
"The most valuable features are the duplication and compression traffic. We have second storage that we can use for the synchronization of data between the data centers."
"The most valuable feature is data mirroring."
"The storage capacity efficiency is phenomenal. It is off the charts in comparison to the compression ratios that we got before. We are able to save a lot more to the device."
"The solution's uptime is fantastic. It's 100 percent. In addition, Nimble's storage capacity efficiency is very effective."
"I use InfoSight quite a bit. It works well. It allows you to get some insight into what's happening in your environment immediately, instead of having to send things off and having them analyzed and sent back to you."
"The most valuable feature is the NVMe flash storage."
"We use InfoSight predictive analytics. It helps us from a performance perspective by identifying potential bottlenecks."
 

Cons

"We need better data deduplication."
"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."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."
"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."
"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."
"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."
"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."
"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."
"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."
"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."
"I have problems with the next servicer. For example, I have a new device and it needs to connect to Nimble."
"HPE does not have suffficient storage."
"It's a good product, but the implementation with the new systems is done via the cloud dashboard from HPE. I can't activate the system without a cloud connection, which is a bit laggy if I don't have the right firewall settings, making it take longer to implement the storage."
"I’d like to see in-line deduplication extended to Nimble non-flash (called “Hybrid”) arrays, even if it’s only the C500 and higher controllers that support it."
"I'd like to see more granular quality of service rules. Currently, I think currently there's not much room for maximum IOPS, but there's not an option for minimum IOPS for a given volume."
"I think the scalability of HPE Nimble Storage could be improved."
"The resellers did the implementation of the solution, we did not do it ourselves. We have ten people for the deployment of the solution."
"If they could reduce the cost, that would be ideal."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."
"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."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."
"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."
"The solution is a little pricey compared to others on the market."
"My company has opted for HPE GreenLake payment model, meaning the billing is done on a quarterly basis."
"The solution’s licensing is on a yearly basis."
"HPE Nimble Storage didn't require a license at the time."
"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."
"I believe the array, maintenance, and everything totaled around $140,000 dollars."
"I rate HPE Nimble Storage's pricing an eight out of ten. It can be expensive, especially when considering console ports and renewals."
"We paid about $80,000 for our permanent site licence."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Real Estate/Law Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
68%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Government
3%
 

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?
It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.
What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?
DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...
What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?
We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...
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.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series
Nimble Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University
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
Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. HPE Nimble Storage and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.