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DDN IntelliFlash vs HPE Nimble Storage comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
DDN IntelliFlash
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
29th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (13th)
HPE Nimble Storage
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.5%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
Anil Rahulwar - PeerSpot reviewer
Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments
It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.
Ajit Pratap Kundan - PeerSpot reviewer
A tool that offers protection against ransomware and other enterprise-level attacks
HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high, making it one of its downsides. HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high compared with any HCI solutions, like HPE's SimpliVity, Nutanix, VMware, or Dell VxRail. A person requires a special skill set to operate HPE Nimble Storage because there are hardly any solutions similar to Nimble Storage in the market. The product's support can be made faster and more responsive if HPE trains its partners in such a way that they acquire more expertise on Nimble Storage through the training sessions. HPE Nimble Storage is dependent on only VMware vSphere Hypervisor. In the future, HPE has to make Nimble Storage feasible with other hypervisors like Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix Acropolis, and RHEV, meaning it should be hypervisor agnostic.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"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."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"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."
"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."
"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"
"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."
"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."
"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."
"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."
"I have added expansion shelves on several of them. It is simple to do. You plug it in, you attach two cables, then you press one button, like "Add", and that is all you have to do."
"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."
"They have really thought through their solution. They've covered everything."
"Performance Integration with Commvault"
"HPE Nimble Storage is a very organized and customer-oriented tool."
"Deduplication and compression."
"The replay and IOPS work well."
"I have found the convergence rate and deduplication the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."
"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."
"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."
"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."
"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."
"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."
"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."
"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."
"Scalability, in terms of being able to scale out, is not easy and should be improved."
"Nimble requires its DNS to work in order to interface with VMware vCenter is a little thorn in my eye, but I am being nitpicky here."
"There is no active-active controller, which means that we can only have one controller online at a time."
"I want to see the full integration with OneView. I know they have started it, but I haven't had a chance to look at and evaluate it."
"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."
"I'd also like to see them incorporate tools that let me get granular with the VMs. I want to see an individual VM, I want to Snapshot and recover an individual VM."
"It would be ideal if all these enterprise-class high-performance products would come at a cheaper price."
"The stability can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"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."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."
"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."
"Our hybrid solution could do with some more competitive pricing and more scaled-down deployments. Already, the smallest one is too much for us. We would flourish by having a smaller unit."
"Nimble has really met all of our needs and at a price we could afford. It certainly wasn't as expensive as a lot of other all-flash solutions that we could have bought."
"It is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"I believe the array, maintenance, and everything totaled around $140,000 dollars."
"It is a CAPEX investment. Over the anticipated lifespan, I would say the pricing is $10,000 a month."
"HPE Nimble Storage is more expensive than some of the other solutions, such as Pure Storage. They charge more for every feature than other vendors."
"Competitive. No licensing. Since everything is included."
"Once you purchase the solution, you don't have to buy any license for this Nimble product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
69%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

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.
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?
It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.
What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?
DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...
What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?
We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...
How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...
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...
What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?
The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series
Nimble Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University
Ace Relocation, Atkins Nutritionals, Berkeley Research Group, Canadian International School, City of Hot Springs, Clackamas County, Corona-Norco Unified School District, Ideal Integrations, Linear Technology, P&O Maritime, Retail Apparel Group (RAG), Virtual Radiologic
Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. HPE Nimble Storage and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.