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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

"It’s top notch because of that single point of contact."
"The flexibility and data deduplication have been the biggest practical applications."
"Our time from customer interest to time of deployment has shrunk a lot."
"The agility is probably the most valuable feature for us. It's very easy to send out resources."
"FlexPod's unified support for the entire stack is very important; before, the customers would log a ticket by Cisco and a ticket by NetApp, and it's better when vendors can partner and look for a solution together."
"The solution’s validated designs for major enterprise apps are also extremely important in our organization. We don't always have time to research products and solutions ourselves. By going with a validated design, we're assured that it's the latest and greatest. It's supported by the three major vendors that we deal with."
"Across the board, this solution is very stable."
"I guess I'm a bit biased in my opinion but I've worked with it for probably seven, eight years and I've never had an issue with it and everything that I need to do with it, I've been able to do pretty much."
"We find the deduplication and compression features to be most valuable, as well as that of the backup solution inside."
"We use the solution for DDI."
"After we migrated to this environment, everything changed."
"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."
"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 and, due to this, the replication and backup operation is not an easy task, yet we prefer HPE SimpliVity modules in our environment even when we have some different cases in operations."
"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."
"Over the last four years we had a 99.9% uptime."
 

Cons

"Surprise me with something I haven't thought of. Maybe it's out-of-the-box and can configure itself."
"I would like them to simplify the UCS configuration. I appreciate that they have about a billion options and a million switches that you can mess with, but this creates a lot of confusion sometimes. I feel like you almost need a Master's course to figure out what you're doing with UCS."
"Support is something that has gone a little bit downhill in the past two years."
"The cost may be high compared to other solutions."
"I have noticed a lot of customers, they will kick it over the fence. It is FlexPod; it is that mystery animal. The room for improvement is to better present it to those users, so they will not have to be afraid of it."
"Make it cheaper."
"There are apparently some new products coming around the whole FlexPod side of things with regards to auditing, to ensure everything is configured correctly. It's basically a "delta" if there have been any changes. It's important to us, from a support perspective, to know if there have been changes and what impact they have actually had."
"The management interface of the UCS part of it is a little bit clunky."
"This is an expensive system and not every customer has the kind of budget to support it."
"It could be enhanced by improving the built-in backup solution."
"There is some scope for improvement in support. The response time could be better."
"Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"Currently, we have problems with the HPE StoreOnce module in regards to the backup operations."
"This is an expensive solution and could be improved with lower pricing."
"Technical support hasn't seemed to be that simple or that easy."
"HPE ConvergedSystem needs to improve its management. I would like the tool to add cloud management features so that the system can be accessed anywhere from the cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We purchased from CDW•G. They are great partners on the government side."
"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 saved time and money for new service deployments. Without FlexPod, it probably takes about ten hours. With FlexPod, within two hours, we are up and running. So, we have seen about an 80 percent time decrease."
"The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers."
"We would like everything in one piece of hardware. This way we can just sell the product like a silo by putting everything in a stack together."
"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."
"We have seen an 80 percent improvement in application performance."
"It is not going to save you money, but that is not the point. The opportunity to stay competitive in the marketplace is not a cost."
"There are some extra costs in addition to the licensing costs for the yearly maintenance from professional third-party services."
"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 system and not every customer has the kind of budget to support it."
"This is an expensive solution."
"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."
"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 competitive. Not a major problem. We have a subscription model."
"The pricing is sensitive."
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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.