Dell SC Series vs HPE Nimble Storage comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell SC Series 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.
To learn more, read our detailed Dell SC Series vs. HPE Nimble Storage Report (Updated: March 2023).
686,748 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud.""I like some basic features like Snapshot, FlexClone, and advanced features such as SnapMirror, and SnapVault. They also recently enhanced the market with Cloud Volumes ONTAP. I think that NetApp is a very good product.""I actually did major projects where we used NetApp storage for some government agencies, and we were able to keep the storage where the government or the customer is able to own the storage while using AWS as their computing. That part was helpful to the customer.""Other manufacturers claim simplicity. In fact, frankly, they do have an advantage in that regard, however, they don't have the functionality. If you were to compare one of those products to NetApp, head to head from a feature perspective, NetApp would wind up in the top 10.""It simplifies data management for NAS environments with its ease of management, ease of share creation, and Active IQ feature. These features are good overall. It helps us manage data quickly and sufficiently. Also, compression features, like dedupe, give us a good ratio.""NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our clients' infrastructure while still getting very high performance for their business-critical applications. One of our customers uses the vSAN environment in the release, then they use NFS for their VMware VCF environment and TKG environment. In this case, when they move to NetApp for the TKG and the VM infrastructures, they use AFF for block, CIFS, and NFS. It provides a single storage with NFS, block, and CIFS with deduplication, team provisioning, and compression. Everything is in there, which makes it very good to use.""The speed of data retrieval is the most valuable feature. We mostly use it for our SAP database and we are getting good IO from the hard drive.""One of the main features that we love about the system is the ability to create snapshots. NetApp makes a lot of snapshots in a short space of time. Also, the speed of data recovery with NetApp, at the time we need it, is an important feature that we love."

More NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Pros →

"It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things.""I've found the stability to be very good.""What is most valuable about the Dell EMC SC Series system was its reliability.""The user interface is good, I would rate it a nine out of ten.""Customers are most impressed with SC's provisioning because you don't need to buy a large amount of storage upfront. It's pay-as-you-grow. It also has solid compression and duplication features.""The Dell support is helpful and the response is quick. The agents' knowledge is very good.""The solution is stable.""The setup is straightforward."

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"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.""The management software that runs in the cloud is called InfoSight and it is very good. It is similar to machine learning software that monitors your hardware.""The deployment is fast.""InfoSight - analytics sight that collects data for all Nimble arrays deployed""The most valuable feature is the NVMe flash storage.""I have found the convergence rate and deduplication the most valuable features.""The most useful features are high availability and the storage snapshot backup functionality.""The capacity for data storage and compression is good."

More HPE Nimble Storage Pros →

Cons
"The NetApp support could be better.""When it comes to the cloud, they might need to improve in terms of making it clear why someone would use a NetApp solution over cloud-made storage.""Another issue is that for smaller customers, NetApp doesn't have enough disk sizes. You begin with a 980-gigabyte disk and the next size is 3.8 terabytes. There aren't any disk sizes in between. Competitors have more choices in disk sizes.""In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that.""After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive.""The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined.""There is room for improvement with the user interface. There are a few things that cannot be done in the GUI. We do a lot of things through the CLI, but that's grown out of a lack of ability to do them in the GUI. An example is QTrees. You can manage them within the GUI, but the GUI is missing a few options.""From my perspective, everything works well. They've already announced that they have some features in their next release that make the existing investment more usable, by adding software features to your existing legacy hardware investment."

More NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Cons →

"The SC Series doesn't support NVMe storage.""Dell could improve the upgrading process.""What I understand is that this is a 13 year old architecture, so it has lived its life and they're phasing it out. Honestly, we were initially struggling with the integration with VMware (but it was fixed with the VMware 6.5) and, then, it was around a 10GB network. At that time, it had the longevity to go to 100GB as well. It got us thinking about, when we go into the containerized architecture, what do we need to do to fix the infrastructure?""The lack of reporting would be the main issue.""While the scalability is good, there are certain limitations.""This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM.""The configuration could be easier in Dell EMC SC Series.""The price could be improved."

More Dell SC Series Cons →

"The HPE Nimble Storage could have better integration with monitoring and machine learning system information solutions.""The resellers did the implementation of the solution, we did not do it ourselves. We have ten people for the deployment of the solution.""The solution could improve by having more granularity. For example, having the ability to go deeper into specific IO channels or specific latency issues that can happen would be a benefit. HPE has this ability on their side but it would be useful to have it on our side.""HPE does not have suffficient storage.""We would like there to be more enhanced features.""You could argue that it would be preferable if everything were cheaper in order to save taxpayer money.""HPE Nimble Storage could be improved with some critical application or servers.""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."

More HPE Nimble Storage Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We benefited from implementing all-flash by reducing our data center footprint. We took it from 30 racks to just over five. This is one of the biggest savings for us."
  • "The licensing and pricing are fine. As a reseller for the product, we need to make the differentiation in the minds of the customer. They are not just buying some tool that does only one thing, e.g., showing a LAN for a customer. The pricing is fair for what it is."
  • "In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
  • "NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
  • "The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
  • "The list price of AFF is too expensive... they need to be careful with the pricing of the new NVMe disks. They are way too expensive."
  • "I looked at other vendors for other potential projects and thought NetApp's pricing was very competitive."
  • "There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices."
  • More NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing depends on varying life cycles."
  • "We have the basic license for the use of this solution and it is a permanent license. The overall cost could be less, it is expensive."
  • "The SC Series was priced fairly. I wouldn't call it either expensive or cheap because we had a very tight budget, so if they were able to fit in that type of budget, they met our expectations."
  • "This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors."
  • "The pricing is reasonable, but it is expensive."
  • More Dell SC Series Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I think HPE Nimble Storage is less expensive than Primera and is the best solution for Venezuela."
  • "We pay a one-time fee for terabyte licenses, and the support is paid yearly."
  • "There is a one-time price for hardware, and with the software support, everything is included, such as software upgrades. The licensing of the solution is included in the cost of the hardware and the support is an extra cost. We have purchased support on an annual basis, but you can purchase support up front for up to seven years. We usually buy five years and near the time of the expiry, we sometimes extend it."
  • "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."
  • "The pricing for this product is somewhat high."
  • "There is a monthly fee to use the solution."
  • "Once you purchase the solution, you don't have to buy any license for this Nimble product."
  • "The price of HPE Nimble Storage is good."
  • More HPE Nimble Storage Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in the… more »
    Top Answer:This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost… more »
    Top Answer:The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters… more »
    Top Answer:It had many features, like a snapshot, replication, on-the-file RAID levels, mix-and-match files, those kinds of things.
    Top Answer:Pricing is market-related and is flexible for the solution. Pricing depends on varying life cycles.
    Top Answer:Dell could improve the upgrading process. It was the lifecycle that made it very short. You'd upgrade the disk, and in… more »
    Top Answer:HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one,… more »
    Top Answer:HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. The… more »
    Top Answer:The initial setup is straightforward.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
    SC Series Storage, Compellent
    Nimble Storage
    Learn More
    Overview

    NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) is a storage infrastructure that contains only flash memory drives instead of spinning-disk drives. NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) addresses enterprise storage requirements with best-in-class data management, higher performance, and flexibility. All Flash FAS systems accelerate your operations without sacrificing the effectiveness, dependability, or adaptability of your IT infrastructure, since they are built on ONTAP data management software. As an enterprise-grade all-flash array, the NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) manages and safeguards your critical data, making your datacenter’s transition to flash simple and painless.

    NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) is a robust, scale-out platform designed for virtualized environments and can be deployed as an independent system or a high-performance tier in a NetApp ONTAP configuration.

    NetApp All Flash FAS Features

    NetApp AFF has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Cloning and Snapshot copies combined with native space efficiency can lower storage expenses.
    • Near-zero performance impact for snapshot copy creation, cloning, and replication.
    • Application-consistent Snapshot copies simplify app management.
    • Synchronous replication using NetApp MetroCluster software, a feature that is only available from NetApp in the all-flash array market and provides zero RPO and close to zero RTO for workloads that are mission-critical.
    • Support for at-rest data encryption and an onboard key manager to help secure your data through easier key management.
    • NetApp SnapMirror replication software reduces overall system costs by replicating to any type of FAS/AFF system, whether it is all-flash, hybrid, or HDD, on premises or in the cloud.

    NetApp All Flash FAS Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing NetApp AFF. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Change the economics of your data center with flash - you'll consume 11 times less electricity, require 11 times less rack space, and spend 67 percent less on support compared to a data center using HDDs.
    • Manage data with a single piece of software for SAN and NAS settings, including flash, disk, and the cloud.
    • Within 10 minutes, you can provision storage and serve data.
    • Inline data reduction technology can reduce SSD storage by 5 to 10 times on average.
    • Protect your data using the system's best-in-class integrated data protection suite.
    • Scale out to 24 nodes, 367PB of effective capacity, and 4 million IOPS without causing disruption.
    • Accelerate applications with up to 12 times more IOPS and 20 times faster response thanks to NetApp ONTAP FlashEssentials.

    Reviews from Real Users

    NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its handling of read and write operations and its high-capacity drives. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    Harish M., Senior Consultant at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “The most valuable feature is its ability to handle high-intensity read and write operations. It works very well in terms of this.” He adds, “We recently started using the volume encryption feature, which is helpful because there are some federal projects that require data at rest to be encrypted.”

    Another PeerSpot reviewer, a director at an IT Infrastructure Services department at a university, notes, “In terms of the footprint, it is far more efficient. It has smaller, higher-capacity drives than our older unit. In terms of space, power, and cooling, it has simplified things.”

    Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

    HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective All-Flash Storage Array solution that aims to enable organizations to reliably store and access their data. Organizations across a wide variety of industries trust Nimble Storage to assist them with all of their data storage-based needs. It both tracks all of the IT architecture that an organization uses and protects that architecture from a variety of digital threats.

    HPE Nimble Storage Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy HPE Nimble Storage include:


    • Increased security. Nimble Storage provides organizations with powerful layers of protection. It leverages predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep businesses from suffering harm related to emerging threats. The AI and ML software identifies threats before they can threaten a user’s data.


    • Reduced costs and increase profits. Businesses that deploy Nimble Storage find that their overhead costs end up being significantly reduced by up to 49%. One of the reasons for this is that Nimble Storage uses a “pay as you go” subscription model which means that users never pay for more storage than they actually need.


    • Ease of use. Nimble Storage is simple for administrators to utilize. They can install it without any kind of outside assistance. It is also simple for the average administrator to manage without specialized training.



    HPE Nimble Storage Features


    • Artificial intelligence. The backbone of Nimble Storage’s IT infrastructure is its AI software. The HPE InfoSight feature makes it so that administrators don’t need to make guesses when managing their data storage. It offers users suggestions as to what they can do to improve their storage performance.


    • Scaling. Nimble Storage gives users the ability to scale their data storage so that it appropriately meets their needs. They can both “scale up” or increase the sheer amount of data that they can store at a given time and “scale out” or increase their ability to perform effectively.


    • Hybrid storage. Nimble Storage has the ability to store data both on the cloud and on-premises so as to meet an organization’s storage requirements. Its multi-cloud feature enables users to seamlessly manage all of their data storage and utilization operations with ease.


    Reviews from Real Users

    HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ease of use and its powerful InfoSight analytics feature.

    Andrew B., Head Of Information Technology at Zambia National Building Society, writes, “It's a very easy solution. Whenever I have a question, I find they have already provided a solution for it.”

    Prataparao D., Technical Solution's Consultant for HPE Storage Devices at Karvy Innotech, says, “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.”

    Offer
    Learn more about NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS)
    Learn more about Dell SC Series
    Learn more about HPE Nimble Storage
    Sample Customers
    Acibadem Healthcare Group, AmTrust Financial Services, Citrix Systems, DWD, Mantra Group
    TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric
    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
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company15%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Manufacturing Company16%
    Healthcare Company16%
    Pharma/Biotech Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Healthcare Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Government9%
    Educational Organization7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise75%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business47%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise35%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise56%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise36%
    Large Enterprise32%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise52%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell SC Series vs. HPE Nimble Storage
    March 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell SC Series vs. HPE Nimble Storage and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
    686,748 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell SC Series is ranked 16th in All-Flash Storage with 10 reviews while HPE Nimble Storage is ranked 7th in All-Flash Storage with 25 reviews. Dell SC Series is rated 8.6, while HPE Nimble Storage is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Dell SC Series writes "The performance was staggering and more than what we paid for". On the other hand, the top reviewer of HPE Nimble Storage writes "Proactive end-to-end management". Dell SC Series is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, IBM FlashSystem, Pure Storage FlashArray and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, whereas HPE Nimble Storage is most compared with HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray and IBM FlashSystem. See our Dell SC Series 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.