HPE Nimble Storage Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Atwood Cheung

IT Contractor at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Jul 5, 2022

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Stable and user-friendly but lacking active clusters

Pros and Cons

"HPE Nimble Storage is very stable and performs well."

"HPE Nimble Storage could be improved with some critical application or servers."

What is most valuable?

HPE Nimble Storage's best features are that it's stable and user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

HPE Nimble Storage could be improved with some critical application or servers. Currently, we have to compensate for this by using flash storage. In the next release, HPE Nimble Storage should include active clusters and a hybrid file service.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using HPE Nimble Storage for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

HPE Nimble Storage is very stable and performs well.

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How are customer service and support?

HPE's technical support could be improved, but their response time is quite good, and their remote troubleshooting is quite helpful.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we used Compellent, but HPE Nimble Storage's performance is far better and faster. We also use Pure Storage in addition to HPE Nimble Storage as it provides more stable, faster performance and active storage on two different sides.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward and took about two weeks to complete.

What about the implementation team?

We used an SI to implement HPE Nimble Storage.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

HPE Nimble Storage's price is moderate - I would rate it at three out of five.

What other advice do I have?

I would give HPE Nimble Storage a rating of seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Jigar Acharya

VP - Engineering Operations at WPG Consulting

Sep 5, 2021

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Robust, reliable, and problem-free

Pros and Cons

"Even if one control fails, it automatically turns on the other controller and everything moves from one to the second instantaneously without any issues."

"If they could reduce the cost, that would be ideal."

What is most valuable?

In general, the solution works great. We haven't had any issues with it.

It's very reliable. Even if one control fails, it automatically turns on the other controller and everything moves from one to the second instantaneously without any issues.

The product is quite robust.

What needs improvement?

Nimble is costlier than EqualLogic, for example. If they could reduce the cost, that would be ideal.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been dealing with the solution for the last three years. It's been a while.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has been very stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have dealt with technical support, and we haven't had any issues with them. We are satisfied with the level of support on offer.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I'm also familiar with EqualLogic.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of the solution is a little high, although the performance is very good.

What other advice do I have?

We are resellers.

We are using the most up-to-date version of the solution, however, I cannot speak to the exact version number.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. We haven't had any issues.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage

May 2024

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Learn what your peers think about HPE Nimble Storage. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.

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it_user569832

IT Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 14, 2017

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It is easy to set up, easy to use, and reliable.

What is most valuable?

Ease-of-use: You don't have to be a storage expert to navigate and set up the product.
Reliability: If there are any issues with the product, their support team calls me before I even notice that there is an issue. They're very proactive.

How has it helped my organization?

With our previous storage product, I would probably spend 2-4 hours a week managing it, logging, checking on things, and fixing issues. Since we've switched to Nimble, I probably spend an hour a month doing various maintenance tests. It has greatly reduced the amount of handling that our storage requires.

What needs improvement?

Third-party integrations: A lot of products tend to come out and support NetApp, EMC, and various other storage managers. Nimble tends to be lagging behind in that space, and it's not completely their fault, but I think they could do a better job pushing for those integrations with various third-party products.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have used the solution for a little over two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not encountered any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not encountered any scalability issues, as it's very scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

The level of technical support is 10/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were on NetApp previously. It was too cumbersome to manage. Their support was atrocious, and they were really expensive.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. We had it unboxed, uncrated, racked, and connected to VMware in probably two hours, tops.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Their pricing window was more straightforward than in traditional storage. They have basically guaranteed maintenance pricing. In years four, five, six, and beyond, they don't force you to upgrade like some of the other vendors.

The license is straightforward and it's all inclusive. There's no need to buy different license keys to get access to certain features. What you pay for, and you pay one price, you get it all.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at everybody on the market.

What other advice do I have?

Don't be hesitant, and trust their technology, because it works. Just because they don't have the market share of NetApp and EMC, isn't a reason to overlook them.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.

it_user184665

Independent IT Analyst with 51-200 employees

Mar 23, 2016

It’s interesting to note that the NimlbeOS remains exactly the same for both hybrid and AFA systems.

Originally posted https://www.juku.it/en/nimble-storage-all-flash-late-but-right/

Nimble has finally launched its new All Flash Array: Predictive Flash Array. It took too long but, now that it’s out, it can’t be said they didn’t get it right!

All-Flash, finally

Nimble-Storage-AFA-4up-rackAll-Flash is table stake now. Don’t have it? …well then, you can’t play!

That’s the real problem. All-Flash still counts for a relatively small percentage of overall primary storage sales but, again, it is an option that customers want to have in every new project.

It is true that prices are continuing to fall, and somewhere down the line your next primary storage system could most likely be an AFA, and that goes for smaller enterprises too.

Nimble has been pressured a lot lately because of the absence of such a product in its lineup. But at least now they have a good array… ready to compete with all other AFAs, with interesting features and some good news coming for existing users of hybrid systems too.

Why it’s right

Pressdeck2The product looks very dense compared to the competition. Nimble has also adopted an interesting disk tray design that can host both 2,5″ and 3,5″ drives and the performance output positions them in the right spot in terms of balancing between performance and capacity (we are talking about 2PB usable capacity and 300K IOPS for the single system, up to 8.2PB and 1.2M IOPS for a scale-out cluster of 4 nodes and 16RU). I actually don’t have an independent benchmark, but one of their customers who has been included in Nimble’s beta program, told me that the numbers measured in the field are aligned to what Nimble says in its slides.

It’s interesting to note that the NimlbeOS remains exactly the same for both hybrid and AFA systems. And new features introduced today (like Deduplication for example) will be available on old (hybrid) systems too. And this is probably one of the reasons why it took so long to bring the AFA to the market.

Another characteristic of Nimble’s new array that I really loved today is the scale-out capability of the product. Nothing new really, and not because of scale-out itself, but because you can mix different system types in the same cluster. It doesn’t mean that it is safe to span data volumes between different types of arrays, but it will be of help for transparent data migrations (especially if you have no success with functionalities like VMware storage vMotion). To be fair, this feature is not unique to Nimble in the market but again, it could be very useful in some environments.

PressdeckNimble’s offer is also aligned with the competition when it comes to support, with a 7-year warranty on Flash Drives and other good support program characteristics. Again, not unique but great for end users.

But flash is just flash

From my POV, a primary storage vendor must have an All-flash array today (and not only), but this is not the differentiator. Not anymore!

Again, if we go through any single spec of this system and compare it to others in the market, I’m sure we will find that some could be better, others could be worse… the differentiation lies elsewhere.

Looking at Nimble now, as far as I’m concerned the differentiator is in its Cloud-based analytics tool: InfoSight.
This tool, thanks to the great amount of sensors continuously collected and the big data applications at the backend, puts the end user in the position of knowing what’s really going on with his/her storage system at any time, suggesting actions and helping the sys admin in his/her day to day job.

This kind of help could contribute to driving down TCO while increasing system uptime, especially for small and mid-size organizations where resources are often constrained and sysadmins are forced to cover every aspect of infrastructure support.
Nimble is investing a lot in this area, InfoSight is being continuously improved and the company is also looking at how to implement new features aimed at taking a deeper look at all infrastructure components and up in the stack, into the applications!

Closing the circle

The message is quite simple here: Congratulations Nimble for finally introducing your AFA to the market… and thank you for doing it in the right way (without disrupting compatibility with other products and by adding more and more features to InfoSight and for your existing hybrid customers). But that’s it, Flash is no longer the differentiator and even more important, basic specs don’t make a huge difference either. You simply have to have an AFA to play and start a conversation with end users today (even if the project will probably end up with the implementation of hybrid arrays…)

All the good now happens in the upper layers: software, efficiency, sophisticated data services, QoS, integration, analytics and so on (which is not a cotracticion to what I wrote above!). I also think that all primary vendors should look much more carefully at secondary storage and cloud integration. Something that is still not happening… but that will be the next differentiator.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: I was invited to this press event by Nimble and they paid for travel and accommodation, as well as for a lot of food! I have not been compensated for my time and am not obliged to blog. Furthermore, the content does not get reviewed, approved or edited by anyone other than the Juku team. Juku was commissioned by Nimble in 2015 to write a paper.

Chris ChilderhoseLead Infrastructure Architect at ThinkON

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Mar 23, 2016

Great review. We are Nimble customers and I may now start looking in to the AFAs for future projects.

Mitchell Threadgill

Infrastructure Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Mar 19, 2023

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Great deduplication, very stable, and keeps my machines up and running

Pros and Cons

"It's very easy to set up. It's very stable, and it has got great deduplication, especially for hypervisor users."

"There should be faster interfaces."

What is our primary use case?

I use HPE Nimble Storage for Hyper-V clusters. I'm using the latest OS and the latest firmware. I keep them updated.

How has it helped my organization?

It keeps my machines up and running. For deduplications, it's a pretty good machine.

What is most valuable?

Deduplication is probably the most valuable feature. It's very easy to set up. It's very stable, and it has got great deduplication, especially for hypervisor users.

What needs improvement?

There should be faster interfaces.

It would be nice if you could use something other than the proprietary rights on it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using HPE Nimble Storage for about a year and a half.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I'd rate it a ten out of ten in terms of stability. I haven't had any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I'd rate it a ten out of ten in terms of scalability.

How are customer service and support?

I'd rate them an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

It was easy, but I've been doing it for twenty years. I'm not worried about that.

What was our ROI?

We have absolutely seen an ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Its price is a little higher.

What other advice do I have?

I'd rate HPE Nimble Storage a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user783972

Corporate at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Dec 13, 2017

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It dynamically understands what data is being stored on it and where to store it

Pros and Cons

"Their remote management and understanding when things are starting to go wrong and their ability to fix them before the customer even knows, this has been a big positive when a customer makes the decision to go with Nimble"
"We have found the advantage of it is the easy, rapid setup, but also that it is very easy to manage."
"It dynamically understands what data is being stored on it and where to store it, because they have got a flash array at the front, then obviously the standard style of storage at the back."
"Their tech support is very professional, know their products, know what they do, and they are very informative in terms of keeping the customer updated."

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

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest thing from when they have replaced the old storage is that they have not had to touch it. That once it is set up it, it dynamically understands what data is being stored on it and where to store it, because they have got a flash array at the front, then obviously the standard style of storage at the back. There was not a lot of configuration needed to make it understand what their business was about and how it worked. It was just a big plus that once it was in, they more or less could forget about it.

It allowed them to concentrate on other projects that were obviously important for growing their business rather than having to worry about managing the storage, which is what they used to do with all their old storage.

What is most valuable?

Before HPE bought Nimble, we had a couple of customers that use it quite extensively, not just for storage of data, but also as their backup solution as well. So, we have found the advantage of it is the easy, rapid setup, but also that it is very easy to manage.

Their remote management and understanding when things are starting to go wrong and their ability to fix them before the customer even knows, this has been a big positive when a customer makes the decision to go with Nimble.

What needs improvement?

The backup solution that they are using now probably has not been deduped. I think this is probably sort of one area that the customer is a little bit concerned about. It is a timing issue for them, though it is still working at the moment. It is just not giving them enough header space that they thought they would have because the dedupe does not seem to be working as well as it could. So, it is something that needs to be reviewed and to make sure the customer has not clicked a certain feature.

I know for a fact that once they get in touch with HPE or Nimble, they will obviously look at the box remotely, see where there are potentially fine tunings, and if it is just a question of the customer having time to allow them to come online and review it, hopefully it will get solved.

Apart from that, everything else has been positive.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The occasional disk here and there goes. However, they turn up and swap the disk before you even know it. So, stability has been very good in that sense.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have added a couple of shelves over the years to the product already. We still have capacity to add one more shelf to it, but obviously the product changes and develops all the time and allows the expansion, then you still have the ability to pull out the main engines and replace the controller cards on the actual box itself. You know you have a growth area forward in the product. It is not as if you have to throw it away and start again, when you hit the capacity. That was another advantage, it was easy to upgrade.

How is customer service and technical support?

I can only really sort of comment when it was Nimble, because obviously HPE has only owned them for a few months now. From both a pre-sales and post-sales, I have always found them really good. They are very professional, know their products, know what they do, and very informative in terms of keeping the customer updated. For me, it is always just been a positive, which would be why I would always recommend them on to other clients, because of that.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Our customers have been looking at 3PAR, but:

It is too expensive.
It was not automated enough, in the way that Nimble is.

It is sort of one of those decisions that it is quite easy to make in terms of the Nimble solution for money for storage size regarding which is more cost effective. Also, the ability to set it up and more or less leave it alone to run itself. It is a big positive.

it_user562509

Infrastructure Developer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Feb 12, 2017

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Ease of management, speed, and price are the most valuable features. There is no licensing cost.

What is most valuable?

Easy management (and easy management during the lifetime of the product) translates into savings. Therefore, it’s important for us.
Speed and price: Nimble Storage is simply the most speed and space for the least price. No other product comes close.

How has it helped my organization?

We now need fewer hands to manage storage. Nimble has incredible speed and stability.

What needs improvement?

It’s just perfect the way it is!

Nonetheless, it would be nice to have:

I need a real API (REST), and Nimble Storage made a REST for me (and all the other customers), so the product is perfect for me! Most of the other roadmap features do not interest me.
It would be nice to have a ”virtual Nimble Storage box” in the cloud, so that I can replicate data to the cloud (and clone VMs and spin them up). This is in the roadmap.
I also want replicated snapshots on CHEAP space in the cloud (like Amazon Glacier).

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for more than 3 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have encountered no stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have encountered no scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is the best support that I ever had, and it's free!

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used NetApp. Nimble Storage is a better block storage than NetApp on every single parameter.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is very straightforward. Nimble helped us install the first array during the PoC and we installed the rest of the system.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There is no licensing, only an up-front price (and service and support) and the price is cheap for the speed and volume.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Violin, and it was much too expensive and not that much faster.

What other advice do I have?

Buy Nimble Storage!

it_user560250

Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Dec 15, 2016

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We did a POC and then chose it due to the performance and capacity it provides in 3U.

What is most valuable?

Great performance and capacity in just 3U. Volume collections with crash-consistent snapshots every 4th hour, without using up too much disk space (thanks to indexing and redirect-on-write).

How has it helped my organization?

Our hosting environment (VMware ESX-based) got a nice boost thanks to these products. We were able to decommission a whole rack of old FC SAN arrays (HPE EVA4400) and replace it with just a CS300 (3U). Lower disk latency and a whole lot greater IOPS values as well.

What needs improvement?

Perhaps more stability to the InfoSight VMVision feature. A couple of times last year, this feature had stop working for us.

Well, Nimble Storage have had some difficulties/interference during this year with their predictive analytics service InfoSight. Read more about it here: https://www.nimblestorage.com/...

(almost) every Nimble array in the world reports back to InfoSight with data and statistics about the VM’s and connected hosts, which InfoSight automatically analyses and presenting it in a neat way for the user. A very good service and a matter affect, recently (the last couple of weeks) it have worked flawlessly, and hopefully this will continue.

For how long have I used the solution?

One and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Other than InfoSight VMVision, no.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

Magnificent. Quick response and assistance when adding a support case. Even if you create a case at 11:00 PM, or during the weekend, you will get a response shortly after posting the case.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes, we were using both older equipment (HPE EVA4400) and newer equipment (HPE 3PAR). The EVA4400 is now decommissioned, thanks to our Nimble array. Greater performance and capacity are the two main reasons that we switched to Nimble.

How was the initial setup?

Very straightforward, no difficulties at all.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Unlike HPE 3PAR, there is no licensing jungle to find your way out of.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No. We got a PoC array delivered to us first, that got us convinced about the product.

What other advice do I have?

If you're currently looking for a new storage solution in your environment, give Nimble Storage a chance. I can promise you, you won't be disappointed.