We performed a comparison between HPE Nimble Storage and IBM FlashSystem based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both solutions received high marks from reviewers. IBM has an edge in this comparison due to the feedback it received for its speed and innovation.
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"They have really thought through their solution. They've covered everything."
"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."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The replay and IOPS work well."
"Deduplication and compression."
"The most valuable feature is InfoSight, and the ability that InfoSight gives you, from insight within your environment to what is going on at the storage layer."
"I have found the convergence rate and deduplication the most valuable features."
"VMware integration, why is pretty self-explanatory."
"One of the most valuable features is that it's very easy to use and configure. It used to be more difficult, but now it's almost flawless."
"IBM FlashSystem has an easy to use GUI, similar to the IBM Storewize family, which make it one of the best flash storage systems in the market."
"Installing FlashSystem is very easy. It takes less than half an hour, and I can handle it all myself."
"They have a virtualization feature and, even if you do not want to buy that feature, you can have it as a trial for two to three months. If you have another brand of storage from another company, you can use this tool to transfer all your data from the old system to the new Storwize system, which really shortens the migration time."
"The performance of IBM FlashSystem is very good. The new technology and high throughput have given us more confidence in the solution. The management of the system has improved and we can control the monitoring system alerts and multiple FlashSystems with the Enterprise Cloud Edition, which is free. The migration of recently stored data to a new flash is much easier. You can move your data because you can utilize it externally."
"The most valuable features in IBM FlashSystem are IOPS, performance, duplication, and compression."
"I like most of the features. Its speed, performance, and availability are valuable. We are implementing the data reduction technology the most."
"The installation is nice and easy."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"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."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"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."
"There are customers who want to do some different things with the Microsoft Resilient File System. There are some customers who want to do different types of connectivity. I do not know if I would call that an improvement, necessarily, because if you want that, you should get a different product."
"I don't think it is officially released yet, but the main reason that we chose Nimble is because of the sync rep feature. So, I would like to see that further evolve. This feature will be essential for our setups."
"When we’re setting up the solution, making options available regarding the replication tool mechanism would be ideal."
"When sizing the array based on requirements the option to add more network cards for throughput would be something to help clients."
"An area that needs improvement is extending the life of the device after five years."
"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."
"The most difficult part about Nimble was the fact that it didn't have a standard length."
"The solution’s stability could be better. The tool’s pricing is high and depends on the partner."
"The deduplication and compression ratio is not very good. It's not reaching a very high ratio."
"The solution is not easy to implement. It takes a lot of time to study the product and it's a little complicated in general."
"The array level RAID does not seem available."
"The solution is quite expensive. That's one of the downsides to using it."
"In the next release having the next level of high-speed performance would be great."
"Customization features must be improved."
"I would like to see an improvement in the handling of large amounts of rights."
"This product lacks some of the options we wanted. For example, expansion was difficult and it required a lot of patching to be done."
HPE Nimble Storage is ranked 5th in All-Flash Storage with 119 reviews while IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews. HPE Nimble Storage is rated 9.0, while IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of HPE Nimble Storage writes "Beneficial management software, straightforward installation, and good support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression". HPE Nimble Storage is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell PowerStore, HPE Primera and NetApp AFF, whereas IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF and Dell PowerMax NVMe. See our HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM FlashSystem report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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