Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs HPE Nimble Storage comparison

Sponsored
 

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)
Dell PowerMax NVMe
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (3rd)
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 Dell PowerMax NVMe is 3.9%, down from 4.2% 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.
Haseeb Khalid Sheikh - PeerSpot reviewer
End-to-end NVMe capabilities helps improve availability, performance, and capacity
The solution's most valuable feature is the data reduction ratio. You can store a 5:1 ratio of your data in Dell PowerMax NVMe. For example, if you have 200 terabytes of usable capacity, you can save up to five times of data on that capacity. That means you can save one petabyte of data on just 200 terabytes of usable capacity. The solution's end-to-end NVMe capabilities have improved our operations. Everything is fast, and you don't have to map your storage to old hybrid storage technologies. Our organization has experienced positive change, and the solution has improved our uptime, availability, performance, and capacity.
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 initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"I appreciate the performance."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"PowerMax is a compact high-performance appliance. It is one of the best devices in terms of performance specs. It includes an NVMe All-Flash Array."
"It offers a high level of availability, so pretty much near zero downtime."
"It allows us to protect our data using different data centers and replicate bi-directionally between our two main data centers."
"We use ESRS for our call-home, and a lot of times, Dell EMC will respond to the issue before we even know it."
"The compression and deduplication are the most valuable features because of the cost savings."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the data reduction ratio."
"Dell is the best vendor worldwide, with an end-to-end solution starting from a mouse to Telza Hyperfix or HyperConverged devices."
"It is a fantastic Dell EMC product ever competing with all the vendors. It stands out in terms of performance. You can ask for mission-critical application workloads."
"Regarding their support, you always get through to somebody who knows exactly what they're talking about."
"Our upgrades are seamless. Whether we're adding storage, or upgrading the software, we don't take an outage for those upgrades."
"Performance, reliability, InfoSight, the ability to upgrade the O/S on the SAN without taking it down, and cost."
"The most valuable features are its cost-effectiveness, performance, and its deduplication deficiencies."
"It has allowed us to upgrade our DMS to the latest version and reuse the older array as the DR storage for VMware SRM."
"Any updates are just part of your subscription, so you don't have to buy add-ons for new features. You're continually adding value to it."
"The solution runs pretty fast."
"HPE Nimble Storage uses the InfoSight platform and it is useful because we can identify the faults and can analyze the performance. It has many other features. This feature is the best that I have observed from HPE Nimble Storage."
 

Cons

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"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."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"The initial setup was complex, as it is a complex system and you have to learn a lot."
"PowerMax's software is highly stable, but we faced two hardware issues in one year. We had a failure of the storage director module, and the physical disk failed on another occasion. Dell EMC should improve its hardware quality."
"The GUI interface is very complicated and could be improved by streamlining the number of steps in the process."
"Some of the management features could be simplified and that's probably the main thing they need to address."
"Remove the need for physical or hardwired virtual servers to run consistency groups, instead make the expensive array controllers handle that."
"I would like NVMe to be end-to-end in the next release. Right now, it is not end-to-end."
"If you go to Pure or you go to NetApp, they deliver in one month. If you go to Dell or HP, they will take up to six months for delivery. This is not a business model for today."
"I hear from people on my team that they would like improved reporting. While there are some decent tools for doing reporting, they would like to see a lot more built-in functionality. This way when they are logged into the interface everyday doing basic management tasks, they could also see some statistics on what is their storage pool usage and will be their projected usage with their current data growth. They want to be able to see more detailed stats on how they are using the system and have forecasting."
"I would like to have more administrative rights, for example, root-level administrative rights to the underlying OS of the storage array. We want more access to the kind of underlying infrastructure of the storage array rather than relying on support. However, most companies are looking to have more managed solutions which is the opposite direction of what I want."
"We are doing a hybrid and are moving some machines to Microsoft Azure to run in hybrid mode. We are checking the availability of extra software-defined storage so that we can configure it."
"The scalability could be better."
"HPE Nimble Storage could be improved with some critical application or servers."
"HPE Nimble Storage provides only SAN-based storage and does not support NAS-based storage."
"When sizing the array based on requirements the option to add more network cards for throughput would be something to help clients."
"Scalability, in terms of being able to scale out, is not easy and should be improved."
"When we’re setting up the solution, making options available regarding the replication tool mechanism would be ideal."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"From reclaiming data center space which is so tightly constrained these days, it will pay for itself in a short amount of time, which is fantastic. Anything we can do to get more out of our current physical data center space helps us a ton, and PowerMax has helped enable that."
"The pricing might be a bit high for small organizations, so it's more suitable for larger enterprises."
"The price is on the market. It's not inexpensive, but it's available on the market."
"Dell is expensive compared to other products and I would rate its pricing a four out of ten."
"One area for improvement, one that everybody always comes to, is price... it's still quite expensive to purchase these big arrays... For us, the pricing doesn't make Dell EMC uncompetitive."
"The price is really high."
"We hope that with the combination of both NVMe and SCM the next PowerMax will be much cheaper that the one which we acquired."
"Dell PowerMax NVMe's price is expensive."
"My company has opted for HPE GreenLake payment model, meaning the billing is done on a quarterly basis."
"Nimble Storage is too expensive for our enterprise customers."
"Its price is a little higher."
"There is a monthly fee to use the solution."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable for the features that it provides."
"Performance per dollar, when we looked at it, was the highest that we could get for what we needed."
"I think HPE Nimble Storage is less expensive than Primera and is the best solution for Venezuela."
"I believe the array, maintenance, and everything totaled around $140,000 dollars."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?
Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...
What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?
Dell offers various pricing models, including a pay-as-you-go option where storage is provided without upfront charge...
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
Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax
Nimble Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Rackspace, Open Line
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 Dell PowerMax NVMe vs. HPE Nimble Storage and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.