HPE Primera vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0, while NetApp is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 4.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and HPE Primera are both leading storage solutions. HPE Primera leads due to its superior feature set and proactive customer service.

Features: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays offer high performance, low latency, and cost-effectiveness. HPE Primera includes AI-driven operations, all-flash, tier-1 storage, and advanced scalability.

Room for Improvement: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays need better integration with third-party applications, enhanced data protection, and more intuitive management. HPE Primera requires improved backup solutions, a more user-friendly management system, and faster data migration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are known for straightforward deployment and responsive support. HPE Primera is praised for easy deployment, proactive customer service, and robust technical support.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays have competitive pricing and strong ROI. HPE Primera has a higher initial cost but offers significant ROI due to its advanced features and reliability.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

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 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 HPE Primera is 4.2%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Paul Pearson

Storage and Backup Architect at Concentrix

Works well, is easy to implement, and has upgrade analysis capabilities

We love the product. Pure Storage works really well. The CAT tool and also the ability to upgrade the unit's place grades are great. It allows for in-place control or upgrades. It's a very simple implementation. They have a good tool to analyze upgrades. The stability is good. Technical support has been excellent.

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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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Enric Cuixeres

Head Of Information Technology at Leng-d'Or

A storage solution that offers great stability, resilience, and support

The initial setup phase of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is not easy. Probably every customer will need a specialized partner to help them create the volumes to let them store files, virtual machines and create a NetApp Snapshot policy, which is not an easy task and requires NetApp professionals. The solution is deployed on-premises. The deployment process of the solution took around two to three weeks.

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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

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

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

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"HPE Primera is scalable."

"HPE Primera has good integration. All the users are using HP servers and some systems, such as Synergy, which integrate well into the solution."

"The performance of the solution is good."

"It is a stable and scalable solution with quick and efficient storage capability."

"The high availability was most valuable because they come with what's called 100% data availability. With special terms, they license and guarantee 100% data availability. That was probably one of the key features or components that HPE was offering with that model."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to provide the IOPS ratio which is required by a lot of our customers."

"There has been a lot of changes in HPE Primera OS, and most of the time any package related to it is simple to upgrade. It does not require any support for the operation. The customer can easily deploy any code directly from the GUI which is very good. Additionally, we have individual storage we can allocate and easily manage."

"HPE provides good support through their customer service."

More HPE Primera pros

"The stability, speed, and reliability are the solution's best features. The information is also very secure."

"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."

"We do a lot of in-house, application-dependent type things, where we find the different niches to the different things. Certain things they do better. We've found that it actually does very well on some of our higher-end applications."

"The management software is very good."

"We use it for our VDI environment, and have not had any complaints with it."

"The NetApp EF-Series gave our organization easy access to our data bases."

"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."

"I would have to say performance at this point, because the application it is based on is so diverse."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

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

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

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"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."

"We need better data deduplication."

"The software layer has to improve."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

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

"There really isn't any aspect of the solution that needs improvement for the customer other than its price."

"One of the drawbacks of the model we purchased is that it is not running NVMe drives. Even though they say that it is NVMe-ready, it is still on the SSD drives. The model that we purchased has only eight hard drives, and only the ones on the top could work on NVMe. The rest of them are still on the SSD. Its competitors, such as EMC and Pure Storage, are moving or have already moved to NVMe. HPE should improve this solution for NVMe. HPE should also improve IOs in this solution. IOs in HPE are weaker than Hitachi and Pure Storage."

"They could work to make scalability easier."

"Like most storage, we want to see flash become more and more stable. Like any flash that uses MLC or TLC techniques, over time, the more writes you have, the less usable the storage becomes. They try to plan for this and have a lot of extra space in the arrays, but over time, their performance does degrade. This is true for any flash storage."

"We cannot use this storage for critical applications and data."

"Increasing the IOPS and throughput values would make the product even better. Improving the scalability of HPE Primera is also recommended."

More HPE Primera cons

"They could improve overall scalability through performance. Denser capacity, which is doable, it is what the competition is doing."

"We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly."

"The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

"The dashboard could be simplified."

"The only major drawback is the replication between EF-Series units."

"NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate."

"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"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."

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

"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 product is expensive."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I rate the product's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"HPE Primera service is cost-effective."

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

"The pricing for HDD was good."

"The license for HPE Primera is all-inclusive."

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

"HPE Primera is a little bit higher than Dell PowerStore...HPE Primera costs around 80,000 USD."

"HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"The pricing of the solution is expensive, considering the initial investment required...At the end of the product's life cycle, it could get cheaper, but the initial investment in NetApp makes it one of the most expensive solutions."

"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."

"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."

"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive with other vendors here in Egypt."

"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."

"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."

"The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays 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

35%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

19%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 31% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% 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 36% 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 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 32% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

May 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

May 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

Primera

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

April 2025

Free Report: HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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