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FlexPod XCS vs HPE ConvergedSystem comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

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

FlexPod XCS
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE ConvergedSystem
Ranking in Converged Infrastructure
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure for SAP HANA (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 9.2%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE ConvergedSystem is 17.2%, up from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems
The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.
Fatai Akinwande - PeerSpot reviewer
Has the ability to easily scale resources and redistribute workloads across multiple hosts
HPE ConvergedSystem could be enhanced by improving the built-in backup solution, as the current one fell short of our needs and led us to opt for third-party tools like Veeam. Additionally, addressing challenges related to remote copy functionality, especially in low-bandwidth conditions, would significantly improve the overall usability and effectiveness of HPE solutions in our setup.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate technical support as a 10 out of 10. They are good and responsive."
"One of the easiest solutions to implement, maintain, and scale."
"The validated design is really important for us because it gives us a model on which to base our architecture and continued support for all firmware upgrades. It also provides consistency throughout the environment."
"The biggest lesson that I have learned from this solution is the ease of actually setting it up and learning it."
"The most significant benefit is storage flexibility. FlexPod is a reference design to build on and add the appropriate resources you need for your workloads. That's what differentiates it from something like HCI, where you have to buy certain size pieces when you want to expand."
"We’ve seen an improvement in application performance."
"Integrated support: It is all under one support contract."
"It makes us more lateral and faster to production."
"We use the solution for DDI."
"The solution's technical support was good. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"Most of the HP products I come across are they are easy to install. That's not very complex."
"We find the deduplication and compression features to be most valuable, as well as that of the backup solution inside."
"This solution is very simple to use."
"The tool's most valuable features are stability and scalability."
"The most valuable features of HPE ConvergedSystem are scalability and resilience."
"The flexibility is the most advantageous aspect of the solution. Our system has a very big environment. Due to this, the replication and backup operation is not an easy task. We prefer HPE SimpliVity modules in our environment, even when we have some different cases in operations."
 

Cons

"I would think more cloud integration, a lot more flexibility with adapting to different things."
"The last two calls that I have made to NetApp support have been handled too casually. People are too lax, not quite as professional as I would have liked."
"FlexPod XCS needs to improve its pricing."
"I would also like to feel more support. NetApp has been pretty good, for the most part, but Cisco has more work to do. I've had very good experience with NetApp. Instead of having to call three different areas and saying, "I'm a FlexPod customer." It would be nice if it could be just one that gets routed. I know it would require three large companies to work together, but that's what would make this product a ten. They could definitely use with making it more user-friendly."
"As the technology grows, we're looking to upgrade our storage systems to something faster, and we're hoping to improve our servers with next-generation technology. So we want to enhance our server infrastructure and explore server virtualization with VMware. That's the improvement that our clients are demanding."
"FlexPod will do very well on the average app, but there's room for improvement in performance and the data center side."
"Mainly, the interface needs improvement. I'm not a big fan of UCS Manager, sometimes. I believe they released the new one, and it seems like in every version something changes and something else doesn't work. When they switched to HTML5, I believe we had issues in version 3.2. They fixed it in the next version. The amount of work to upgrade a system for change control is tedious to have issues every time. I would recommend more regression testing, then testing the different browsers in that."
"There are too many drivers and software combined all together, and we need to have compatibility between all of them."
"The solution has a complicated front-end."
"The solution needs to add NFS features."
"This is an expensive solution."
"It could be enhanced by improving the built-in backup solution."
"Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"I would like to see better manageability and integration with third-party tools."
"Perhaps they can work on providing faster allocation of memory or storage."
"The MTG inside HP could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FlexPod has saved data center costs, due to the fact that we reduced our footprint for storage in a big way. We went from three complete racks down to a 2U storage array for more than 300 terabytes of storage."
"We immediately saw a return on investment due to the fact that replacing our legacy storage arrays with the new AFFs reduced the footprint and maintenance costs. Overall, we saw an almost immediate ROI."
"We have seen a five to ten percent savings on new service deployments."
"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."
"Storage is very expensive. To buy MIC cards and additional storage either on-prem or in the cloud, the IT department does not have money for it, so you need a more niche product or a more flexible way to store your data. That is the benefit that you get from this product."
"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."
"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."
"It is expensive. My company is small. When you look at the price point, this is a big thing for us to invest in."
"I rate the product price an eight and a half on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is competitive. Not a major problem. We have a subscription model."
"There are some extra costs in addition to the licensing costs for the yearly maintenance from professional third-party services."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"My company has a five year contract for HPE ConvergedSystem. The contracts depend on companies and sometimes it can be three years. The solution is worth its price."
"The pricing is sensitive."
"Pricing is good. We have not calculated what hyper-converged infrastructure has brought us but I think there has to be some lower cost for us, compared to the public cloud. Obviously, there would be a lower cost, probably by more than half."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
20%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FlexPod?
The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?
The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...
What needs improvement with FlexPod?
FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...
What do you like most about HPE ConvergedSystem?
The most valuable features of the solution are the flexibility and the availability of the machines.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE ConvergedSystem?
I rate the product price an eight and a half on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with HPE ConvergedSystem?
Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE ConvergedSystem 700, HPE ConvergedSystem for SAP HANA, CS500, HPE ConvergedSystem 900, HPE ConvergedSystem 500, HPE ConvergedSystem 300
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group
FAW-Volkswagen, NICS, NBrIX, Pinpoint, HPE Technology Services, SWS, Ko Sistem, HPE
Find out what your peers are saying about FlexPod XCS vs. HPE ConvergedSystem and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.