We performed a comparison between HPE Nimble Storage and Pure Storage FlashArray based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, HPE Nimble Storage came out ahead of Pure Storage FlashArray. Although the two products have a similar ease of deployment, pricing, and quality of service and support, Pure Storage FlashArray requires more improvements in its capacities and features.
"One, it's easy to use and understand. You don't have to be an engineer or an expert to use this storage solution. That's the bad part of Dell PowerMAX. You have to go through very expensive education for one or two weeks and pay ten thousand dollars just to be able to use the product. With Pure Storage, you have a half-day workshop, and you know everything you need to know."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"Pure has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"InfoSight is helpful because it is proactive support."
"The solution runs pretty fast."
"Our virtual admins are able to take control of Nimble and know how to allocate the storage, whenever it is required, thus reducing time."
"The replay and IOPS work well."
"They have really thought through their solution. They've covered everything."
"The performance and the processor are good."
"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."
"They do a good job of helping people do storage in a very simple way."
"Their support system has insight into errors on our SAN fabric that we can't see. They've brought attention to and raised awareness for us about things that we couldn't see, when we were experiencing problems."
"The availability and ease of use are the big features."
"It is all-flash. This makes it a lot faster than the rest of what we have, as it is able to drive high I/O loads, which is big for us."
"We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."
"The product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using."
"The support team is available all the time and they seem to know what they are doing."
"The amount of data that I have moved to it from legacy storage has enabled us to retire units that are three or four times the physical size."
"The reliability is very good."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"We need better data deduplication."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"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."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"The solution could reduce its price."
"When we’re setting up the solution, making options available regarding the replication tool mechanism would be ideal."
"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 large hardware components may be difficult to fit into some standard racks."
"I would like to see more advanced analytics in the next release of this solution."
"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."
"HPE Nimble Storage should improve its latency. It is expensive."
"The quality of technical support depends on which member of the support team you speak with."
"We would like to see more cloud support, which we know is coming, although it's not out yet. It's going to be released in the next versions. That would be the biggest win, if additional cloud support is built into the array."
"I would love to see a true one click upgrade solution. Right now, you have to click and schedule an appointment with Pure Storage to be able to upgrade. I would love for it to automatically download, install, and fall-over every controller as it updates."
"There was some complexity in the initial setup."
"The problem is that we can only make a few groups, around five or six groups. I like groups and we need a lot of them. We had to put all the information in only a few groups and cannot make a more detailed separation of them."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed. I'm just comparing it with what some of my colleagues who are implementing their own systems do."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
HPE Nimble Storage is ranked 5th in All-Flash Storage with 119 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 174 reviews. HPE Nimble Storage is rated 9.0, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of HPE Nimble Storage writes "Beneficial management software, straightforward installation, and good support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "Effective provisioning, helpful support, and reliable". HPE Nimble Storage is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, HPE Primera and VMware vSAN, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, IBM FlashSystem, VMware vSAN and Dell Unity XT. See our HPE Nimble Storage vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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