We performed a comparison between Dell PowerMax NVMe and HPE Nimble Storage based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The security operating system is its most valuable feature because it's very simple, easy to use, and operate. You don't have to do very serious training to operate this equipment. It's user-friendly and pretty straightforward."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"We were actually able to do multiple upgrades, including head upgrades and moving between the platforms, M20 and M50, over the years. We have never once lost a ping and have never had an outage due to an OS upgrade or a complete head upgrade."
"The initial setup was very straightforward and very quick. It was up and running in our data center within 24 hours of receiving it."
"It simplifies building out the storage."
"Running SAP on Pure Storage helps a lot without doing any further tuning to improve application performance. Our internal clients are happy."
"It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive."
"The ease of management is one of the most valuable features of this solution. I would have also said that it's pretty fast but now our SQL servers are starting to beat it up pretty bad."
"The most valuable feature is its global cache, which allows for uncompromised performance."
"Key features include performance, replication time, and dedup and compression."
"I am impressed with the tool's reliability since we see a few hardware failures with it. Also, the solution's replication configuration is good."
"The stability is amazing. Zero downtime reported over the last years."
"It is very stable. We expect superior performance and reliability from this particular storage system."
"It is a true, stable product."
"A huge benefit of the PowerMax has been the decreasing of our physical footprint. We recently did a consolidation where we went from 58 tiles down to 5. If we had used just the PowerMax, we could have gone from 58 tiles down to 2 tiles, which is huge space savings. If you have 56 newly available floor tiles on a raised floor data center, which you previously had to cool and provide power to, then now, not only are my costs going down, I now have more revenue opportunities because I have more space to put new customers."
"For the migration process from the older VMAX arrays to PowerMax, we VMotioned everything. It was easy."
"The most valuable feature is the management of Nimble Storage, InfoSight. This is like a cloud. That's really a very nice feature. I think that's the only reason to buy Nimble Storage."
"It has totally taken away a layer of time and effort, management-wise, from two engineers to give that time back into developing more solutions. It has provided us essentially with a platform to go away and be more creative, knowing that that is stable and can do whatever we chuck at it."
"The capacity for data storage and compression is good."
"Good architecture and produces a lot of IOPS."
"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."
"InfoSight is a valuable feature."
"Performance, reliability, InfoSight, the ability to upgrade the O/S on the SAN without taking it down, and cost."
"This solution has given us reliability that is evident by the fact that it has been running for five years with virtually no hiccups."
"There are scenarios with very specific functionality around VMware integration particularly to do with the way we'd like to manage LUNs in VMware. The tools are pretty good but there's room for improvement there."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"We haven't seen ROI yet."
"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"We would like to see more development on their Copy Automation Tool (CAT) for Oracle, as well as better integration for our customers running Oracle VM."
"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"The technical support is okay, but could be improved."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"Dell needs to offer more midrange storage options with enterprise-class features similar to the PowerMAX."
"The main feature that I personally want to see is the possibility to upgrade to the next generation without changing all the components and just change the engine, relying on the compatibility matrices between two different generations. Meaning that we could just keep the enclosure and upgrade the engine, integrating the enclosure to the existing pool, then adding automation tools for orchestration."
"PowerMax Storage needs improvement in the area of monitoring tools. It should have more functions and more complicated analysis options inside the monitoring tools."
"Support of the product can be slow and an administrative challenge: planning, scheduling, and overseeing data center access for a Dell EMC rep. One improvement could be to enable a self-maintenance option. The requirements that we go through to get Dell EMC onsite to replace failed drives, power supplies, and other small redundant parts can be unnecessarily complex. If simplified, they could send us the parts, then we could replace them much faster, more easily, and truly within the SLA parameters."
"I would like it to support NVMe over Fabrics, because that is the next item for consideration on the NVMe roadmap. PowerMax supports NVMe on the back-end, but when it starts supporting NVMe over Fibre Channel, suddenly various hosts can directly communicate with PowerMax, and with NVMe-oF, as well. Suddenly, Gen 6 and Gen 7 switchers will be able to help facilitate that particular communication channel."
"If the solution had more power-saving capabilities, it would be quite nice."
"I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."
"I would also like to see a real-time, graphical view of metrics. I don't know how far back in time we can look, but if we could see the performance from two months or three months back, and how it is performing now, that would be helpful."
"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."
"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 wish they would put the InfoSight page back the way it was. I got in it for the first time about two years ago, and it looked the same for about a year and a half. Then, about six months ago, it changed. There are different options now. I can still get to where I need to go, but it feels like it takes longer, where before it didn't. Also, I felt like I had a lot more options before. I have to do a lot more to digging now to get to where I need to go. I just wish they had their old page back."
"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."
"I would like to have integration into cloud providers, apart from HPE."
"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 only thing that I can really compare Nimble to is all-flash because, right now, Nimble is a hybrid solution. I would like to see them come out with an all-flash alternative."
Dell PowerMax NVMe is ranked 8th in All-Flash Storage with 66 reviews while HPE Nimble Storage is ranked 5th in All-Flash Storage with 119 reviews. Dell PowerMax NVMe is rated 8.8, while HPE Nimble Storage is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Dell PowerMax NVMe writes "Simplified storage provisioning for us, enabling us to assign any volumes in two to three minutes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of HPE Nimble Storage writes "Beneficial management software, straightforward installation, and good support". Dell PowerMax NVMe is most compared with Dell PowerStore, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and NetApp NVMe AFF A800, whereas HPE Nimble Storage is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, HPE Primera, VMware vSAN and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series. See our Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Nimble Storage report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.