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 #11 with an average rating of 7.9, while NetApp is ranked #24 with an average rating of 9.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 3.1% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.9% 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

December 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 January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 3.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Primera	3.1%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays	0.9%
Other	94.6%

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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Roberto Rodrigues

Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Used for shared storage and has good scalability

Recently, we had many issues with HPE Primera storage, mainly in the leveling process, which caused many problems for the customers. In this architecture, the full application running over this storage gets stuck when one disk fails. We noticed that one leveling process, ungrouping process, and grouping process took around 12 hours to conclude. It was not a good experience. The main issue was that we dimensioned the solution to 1,300 IOPS. The solution has 10 + 2 spare disks, and when one disc fails, the application gets stuck because the IOPS moves to 5,000 IOPS when it happens. We noticed some specific limitations with the solution's graphical interface, which was not rich. The solution's main problem was the grouping and ungrouping process. We confirmed that the problem was with HPE Primera by stopping the whole application while labeling. No IOPS was consumed from the application to the storage, even though the IOPS was 5,000. This means that 5,000 was just for the leveling of one disk. If two disks had failed, the problem would have been bigger than we experienced.

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Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine 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

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

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

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

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The most valuable feature is an all-flash system, which means the data access speed is amazing while the latency is almost nothing, and it can deliver IOPS up to 16,000."

"The most valuable feature of HP Primera is that you don't have to buy an additional product for application replication. It's a stable product. The tool is scalable. I recommend HPE Primera because it's one of HP's most stable product."

"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."

"The product is stable."

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

"HPE Primera is an all-flash storage product that's very stable and has a higher storage capacity. It can also give better ROI compared to NetApp."

"HPE Primera is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes."

"The most important thing that we had found when we purchased this product around six months back was its 100% availability and uptime."

More HPE Primera pros

"Having the option of such high-speed storage in the data center is what makes it valuable."

"The benefits are better up-time, better response time."

"Compared to Dell Unity XT, what I see as an advantage in NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is the fact that it is more scalable...The performance of the product is good."

"The speed is the most valuable feature."

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

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

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

"Some of the valuable features include MetroCluster switchover, in terms of disaster recovery, it is easy to use, and flexible."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

"It is on the expensive side."

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

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

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

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

"The interface needs to be more user-friendly in that sense that installation and management are still a bit on the high end."

"They could work to make scalability easier."

"The solution could prove the reporting."

"On the hardware side, you should have the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers."

"Price is always important in Turkey, so HPE could lower the price to keep it competitive. It's not as competitive as other solutions in this market."

"There are certain shortcomings in the technical support offered by HPE where improvements are required."

More HPE Primera cons

"I’d like to see bigger, faster, better hardware, of course. I think that is the way the hardware is trending anyway; bigger, faster CPU, better software, fewer bugs, all that stuff. T"

"I would like to see higher-capacity drives, as they come out; I have heard that 15 TB are out on a different NetApp series. Getting those on the EFs would be nice."

"Things like the FlexClones, SnapVault, SnapMirror, all of that. Some of it's available on the EF series, but we like what we have in the FAS system."

"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."

"It needs a better management tool."

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

"The dashboard could be simplified."

"The price of the All Flash solution is very high."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

"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 licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

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

"The solution is quite cost-effective."

"It’s a reasonable choice. When compared to other options, we've found it to be accessible and within our means."

"It is basically in the mid-range of the price. It is not cheaper than Hitachi, but it is cheaper than Pure Storage. There are no additional costs. Everything was taken care of in the price."

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

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

"The pricing for HDD was good."

"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."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"The cost of our license is approximately $200,000 over three years for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. There can be additional costs for storage. For example, if you want to have eight terabytes."

"Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."

"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."

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

"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."

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

"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."

"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Performing Arts

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	18

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...

See all answers

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 ...

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 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

What is your primary use case for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

There are so many things to talk about around the use cases associated with the tool. There are so many reasons why I...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 29% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 25% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 13% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

Dell XtremIO 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

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

January 2026

Download HPE Primera product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

January 2026

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

December 2025

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

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