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HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe comparison

 

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

HPE Nimble Storage
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Pure FlashArray X NVMe
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)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.7%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Definitely ease-of-use. I've experienced many different arrays out there and Nimble is definitely there."
"The setup was very, very simple. When we got our AF5000, no kidding, we had it up in production within two hours"
"Regarding their support, you always get through to somebody who knows exactly what they're talking about."
"In the 20 days that we have been using this solution, it has been stable."
"Nimble's phone-home capability is decent. The compression, dedupe, and caching are also solid. Generally, I like the simplicity. It's almost a set-and-forget solution."
"InfoSight has allowed us to centralize our management, understanding how it correlates to the array. It has identified a network issue in the network configuration of ESXi hosts. It enables us to get servers back up faster by 25 percent."
"HPE Nimble Storage is a very organized and customer-oriented tool."
"They have really thought through their solution. They've covered everything."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The latency is good."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
 

Cons

"The solution could reduce its price."
"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."
"When sizing the array based on requirements the option to add more network cards for throughput would be something to help clients."
"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."
"Pure Storages have some option, which allows us the ability to directly download that host inventory and volume report. We can receive everything directly generated from the storage itself. We do not need to use some other web browser or something. If HPE Nimble Storage could do the same it would be a benefit."
"The solution needs to be an active-active controller."
"Scalability, in terms of being able to scale out, is not easy and should be improved."
"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."
"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."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think HPE Nimble Storage is less expensive than Primera and is the best solution for Venezuela."
"Performance per dollar, when we looked at it, was the highest that we could get for what we needed."
"HPE Nimble Storage didn't require a license at the time."
"The price has room for improvement."
"It is a CAPEX investment. Over the anticipated lifespan, I would say the pricing is $10,000 a month."
"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."
"There are no licensing costs for this solution."
"We don't require a license. If we used HPE InfoSight, then we would require a license, but for our needs, we don't need one."
"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
69%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...
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. The solution offers SSD-based cache devices and all SSD devices so you can have co...
What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?
The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.
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 should not incur extra charges. This is one of the main things organizations need.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Nimble Storage vs. Pure FlashArray X NVMe and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.