HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera comparison

HPE Nimble Storage and HPE Primera are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. HPE Nimble Storage is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.5, while HPE Primera is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.8. HPE Nimble Storage holds a 2.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to HPE Primera’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of HPE Nimble Storage users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of HPE Primera users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

HPE Nimble Storage and HPE Primera are both in the storage systems category. HPE Nimble Storage seems to have the upper hand due to ease of use and cost-efficiency, while HPE Primera stands out with advanced features and performance.

Features: HPE Nimble Storage users value InfoSight predictive analytics, easy scalability, and integrated data protection. HPE Primera is recognized for robust performance, lower latency, and superior resiliency.

Room for Improvement: HPE Nimble Storage needs better performance during high I/O operations, enhanced integration with third-party tools, and more advanced features. HPE Primera could be more user-friendly, have better documentation for complex configurations, and offer simpler management options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Nimble Storage deployment is straightforward with excellent customer service support. HPE Primera deployment is more complex but manageable with proper vendor assistance.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Nimble Storage is praised for lower setup costs and positive ROI due to efficient performance and lower total cost of ownership. HPE Primera, though more expensive, offers significant ROI through enhanced performance and reduced downtime.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera

July 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 August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.3%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 3.8%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Ajit Pratap Kundan

PreSales Lead- Government & Defense at Accops Systems Pvt Ltd

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.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

"The latency is good."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"InfoSight is a valuable feature."

"If a ransomware or enterprise-level attack happens, my infrastructure remains totally secure. If any virtual machine gets damaged or collapses, we have built a backup solution, which will take a minute to restore the same version of HPE Nimble Storage in our company."

"We use InfoSight predictive analytics. It helps us from a performance perspective by identifying potential bottlenecks."

"Definitely ease-of-use. I've experienced many different arrays out there and Nimble is definitely there."

"The support from HPE is ten out of ten."

"We have seen our average latency go from four milliseconds to point four. Therefore, we are getting 10 times better performance down to the end user on everything. We have seen an increase in our IOPS by ten times."

"I have added expansion shelves on several of them. It is simple to do. You plug it in, you attach two cables, then you press one button, like "Add", and that is all you have to do."

"The fact that they offer free training is awesome. There are not very many vendors that do that."

More HPE Nimble Storage pros

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."

"Primera's main advantage is its support for NVM drives and normal flash drives. It has some sort of AI analysis that automatically tells us how to optimize the performance."

"HPE provides good support through their customer service."

"One of the most valuable features is the ease of deployment."

"Our customers have given very positive feedback about InfoSign, which is the management software for this solution."

"HPE Primera is stable."

"HPE Primera provides me with system reliability and 100% data reliability. The storage is good and is consistently reliable and scalable, allowing me to use it whenever needed. The overall performance is great. The product is stable. The customer service and support is excellent. It's a commendable solution, especially suitable for online transactions. It is reliable in meeting data requirements."

"All of the capabilities of the hardware such as replication, snapshot, and the specific features are all included from the start as opposed to being on another license."

More HPE Primera pros

Cons

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"The software layer has to improve."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"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."

"It is on the expensive side."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"We need better data deduplication."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The way the market is going, supporting NVMe storage would be useful as a step up."

"We face challenges with hardware delivery."

"The solution needs to be an active-active controller."

"I don't think it is officially released yet, but the main reason that we chose Nimble is because of the sync rep feature. So, I would like to see that further evolve. This feature will be essential for our setups."

"I want it to be an active-active array. Nimble would be great as an active-active array because then everything checks out. It would give a feeling of comfort."

"The backup solution that they are using now probably has not been deduped."

"I would like to see native network attached storage (NAS) functionality. Our customers are looking for NAS, and Nimble can't give it to them."

"Its pricing could be better. It's expensive."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

"The initial setup is not straightforward."

"We have not had a good experience with support from HPE Primera. They can improve."

"The IOPS and throughput could be better. That's the only drawback compared to other vendors."

"On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities."

"We used to receive hardware errors a lot of times. The ambient temperatures rise rate was approximately 35 to 55 degrees, but when it was approximately 27 or 28, we used to get errors a lot."

"The cost of HPE Primera could be lower."

"There are certain features that require engineering-level access, which should be accessible to storage admins as well."

"Recently, we had many issues with HPE Primera storage, mainly in the leveling process, which caused many problems for the customers."

More HPE Primera cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

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

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

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

"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."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Competitive. No licensing. Since everything is included."

"It is expensive, but it is worth the “uptime”."

"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."

"It's expensive. It could be cheaper. I'd rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing. We're on a yearly licensing. I haven't come across any additional costs. We just paid for three-year support."

"The pricing is expensive, although we do not pay anything in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"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."

"The solution’s licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Performance per dollar, when we looked at it, was the highest that we could get for what we needed."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

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

"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 of the solution should be cheaper."

"Because it has high availability, the cost is above average. The cost depends upon the sizing, and every customer has a different size. It is slightly above average in terms of cost compared to its competitors, but the value add was that they could know what their maintenance cost was going to be going forward. They knew what their renewal or expansion costs would be."

"The tool is expensive. I can say that HPE Primera is one of the costliest tools in the market."

"The price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."

"The solution is cost-effective. I rate it an eight out of ten, with ten being excellent."

"The price of this solution is good for medium-sized and large businesses."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

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?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

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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...

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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 do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?

The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.

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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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Primera?

I cannot recall the exact figures for pricing from memory, but it seems to be an acceptable and reasonable price.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 25% 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 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 15% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Nimble Storage Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 35% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage

August 2025

Download HPE Nimble Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

August 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Also Known As

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

Nimble Storage

Primera

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 Nimble Storage is a highly effective All-Flash Storage Array solution that aims to enable organizations to reliably store and access their data. Organizations across a wide variety of industries trust Nimble Storage to assist them with all of their data storage-based needs. It both tracks all of the IT architecture that an organization uses and protects that architecture from a variety of digital threats.

HPE Nimble Storage Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy HPE Nimble Storage include:

Increased security. Nimble Storage provides organizations with powerful layers of protection. It leverages predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep businesses from suffering harm related to emerging threats. The AI and ML software identifies threats before they can threaten a user’s data.

Reduced costs and increase profits. Businesses that deploy Nimble Storage find that their overhead costs end up being significantly reduced by up to 49%. One of the reasons for this is that Nimble Storage uses a “pay as you go” subscription model which means that users never pay for more storage than they actually need.

Ease of use. Nimble Storage is simple for administrators to utilize. They can install it without any kind of outside assistance. It is also simple for the average administrator to manage without specialized training.

HPE Nimble Storage Features

Artificial intelligence. The backbone of Nimble Storage’s IT infrastructure is its AI software. The HPE InfoSight feature makes it so that administrators don’t need to make guesses when managing their data storage. It offers users suggestions as to what they can do to improve their storage performance.

Scaling. Nimble Storage gives users the ability to scale their data storage so that it appropriately meets their needs. They can both “scale up” or increase the sheer amount of data that they can store at a given time and “scale out” or increase their ability to perform effectively.

Hybrid storage. Nimble Storage has the ability to store data both on the cloud and on-premises so as to meet an organization’s storage requirements. Its multi-cloud feature enables users to seamlessly manage all of their data storage and utilization operations with ease.

Reviews from Real Users

HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ease of use and its powerful InfoSight analytics feature.

Andrew B., Head Of Information Technology at Zambia National Building Society, writes, “It's a very easy solution. Whenever I have a question, I find they have already provided a solution for it.”

Prataparao D., Technical Solution's Consultant for HPE Storage Devices at Karvy Innotech, says, “HPE Nimble Storage uses the InfoSight platform and it is useful because we can identify the faults and can analyze the performance. It has many other features. This feature is the best that I have observed from HPE Nimble Storage.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

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

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Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera

July 2025

Free Report: HPE Nimble Storage vs. HPE Primera

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