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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
2nd
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
4th
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 2026, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 12.7%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE ConvergedSystem is 11.2%, down from 17.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.2%
Other76.1%
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

John Kevin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Director at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
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.
PF
Project Engineer at Astellas Pharma US
With good integration and expansion capabilities, the tool also offers good technical support
It is a solution that we could expand in our company. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Our company has 400 users, all of whom have used it at one point or the other. All of the departments are involved in the usage of the tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are very many features, but from experience, the single point of contact for support has been valuable to our customers."
"It's a new architecture, really scalable and programmable. When you look at SDN propositions it fits very well in a next-gen data center."
"Provisioning servers used to take hours, and now it takes up to five minutes."
"I really like the architecture and I like the fact that on the storage side I can swap it out. Right now I'm on NetApp, I might go to Pure Storage. I have the flexibility. But as far as the equipment itself, the way it's all bundled together, from the UCS perspective, its rock solid."
"NetApp is always coming up with features that I want before I know that I want them."
"It's flexible. You can scale up or out. Our environment has never needed it, but the option has always been there."
"The most valuable feature is the one call number for support and the fact that all the documentation comes with it. They have all of the preprepared plans for the deployment model and we can just choose which one we want for VMware, etc. The hardware is all listed. We buy that and away we go. It's called validated design."
"We bought the complete solution and it went in relatively easy."
"The best value was in the service because we receive the solution as a managed service from HPE, so it's a box somewhere in the data center that we don't care about, it's always running and so far, no problems."
"We used to use Dell blades and we didn't have Virtual Connect, so configuring the networks and all of that for our servers took a lot longer."
"As far as what we are doing now, there is no problem with stability; it's pretty flexible, it's efficient, and it is centralized management, cost-effective."
"This is a scalable solution; our customers begin with an initial configuration and later add more servers, memory, and other options to meet the demands of increased processing."
"The most valuable features of HPE ConvergedSystem are scalability and resilience."
"This solution is very simple to use."
"The storage, BladeSystems, Virtual Connect, and simplicity with hyper-converged solutions are the most valuable features of this solution."
"I recommend this solution, I think it's easier to implement Converged than other solutions."
 

Cons

"This solution is very hard to maintain and keep up."
"Technical support is not fantastic."
"Management is still by separate screens. I need to go to NetApp to manage the enterprise storage."
"I would like them to scale more to rack unit servers instead of blade servers."
"FlexPod was born to be used like building-block elements, to create large EDP premises. If used to create a single FlexPod CED, optional operational collaterals (backup, management, etc.) are missing, both in docs and in design."
"Initial setup was extremely difficult. It took us a few days to get it up and running."
"We dislike going online with the robot stuff. Many times, it has delayed our reaching out to a real support engineer."
"The integration with VMware could be a bit smoother."
"Technical support hasn't seemed to be that simple or that easy."
"This is an expensive solution."
"With ConvergedSystem, we'd like to see just how portable and scalable HP can make it. Is it really just an add-on each time and not a complete redesign?"
"The solution needs to add NFS features."
"The solution needs to be easier to use."
"This is an expensive solution and could be improved with lower pricing."
"Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"It was a very rough ride. The people they sent, I don't think they had experience in doing these kinds of implementations before."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We fear high availability so we can't buy from different providers."
"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."
"We have absolutely seen ROI. We have saved between two to four million dollars on travel alone over the past 24 months."
"The NetApp portion was a $5 million investment five years ago. That has served the customer well over five and a half years."
"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."
"We have seen an 80 percent improvement in application performance."
"The cost is a little high."
"Make sure you are buying for performance, not just capacity."
"There are some extra costs in addition to the licensing costs for the yearly maintenance from professional third-party services."
"The pricing is competitive. Not a major problem. We have a subscription model."
"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."
"This is an expensive system and not every customer has the kind of budget to support it."
"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."
"The pricing is sensitive."
"This is an expensive solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise66
Large Enterprise182
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise13
 

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 2026.
907,372 professionals have used our research since 2012.