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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 Manager 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

"The solution’s validated designs for major enterprise apps in our organization are very important. It's basically become critical to our organization to have that system functioning a 100 percent of the time. If that system is not functional, then our doctors and nurses can't provide the care to the patients in an effective way. So, it's important that it is stable, works, and easy to understand."
"If you're looking for a solution that you know is going to work and that you're going to get some solid support and backing from the vendor throughout your process from start to finish, it's going to be the NetApp guys."
"Flexpod helped us reduce the time required to deploy new applications by about 60%, and it has also reduced data centered costs, with maybe a 40% saving, which is significant."
"You can add more boxes and you can have more IOPS available if you want. It's very easy to add new hardware to the cluster."
"The most valuable features are that the solution is vetted and validated and it's supported end-to-end."
"This solution is super easy and straightforward to set up; it is almost set and forget, and everything works really well."
"It is the overall collaboration between NetApp and Cisco to come up with a product that is best in class and best in breed. You are bringing together the best things about UCS and NetApp, as well as you are tying it together with the Nexus fabric."
"Using FlexPod has been simpler than adding in another vendor."
"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."
"The solution is incredibly stable; it's one of the great advantages of the product, and we've never faced any problems when it comes to stability."
"The user interface, reporting, and management are good, and we are quite happy with the performance."
"It's a great solution that is very secure, and very easy to configure."
"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 tool's most valuable features are stability and scalability."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to restore lost machines. Essentially its high availability capabilities are extremely valuable to us."
"One of the biggest things is, the fact that it can be a turn-key solution."
 

Cons

"It was complex to train people in with it. It was a newer technology for our resources, so it did take some time to get them up to speed."
"There are too many management products: System Insight Manager, Oakum, etc. There are a lot of them and you have to know which one to use at which time. Whereas, with competitors, they have a single pane of glass view which has everything in it."
"I'd like to see a little bit simpler management pane. Using UCS Director to front everything is good but for a lot of that upper mid-market, it's probably a little bit of overkill for what they need. They just want a nice, simply portal to go through and see what's going on. So if there was something that was middle of the road, it would be well received."
"We have experienced issues with patching. When there are Cisco releases, there are some vulnerabilities, i.e., security vulnerabilities. We are as a financial company and need to be on top patching. As a company, we cannot have continuous downtime to do patching, which is a challenge that we have faced."
"I would like to see easier day-zero setup. We're having to get other tools to try and set up everything."
"FlexPod has not decreased the unplanned downtime incidents in our company. There was a problem with the back-end configuration and we had a downtime of three hours."
"I get caught in the upgrade matrix quite a bit, which is an indication that it hasn’t been tested."
"My one little pet peeve with all of them is that it's still multiple interfaces."
"The solution has a complicated front-end."
"I think the MTG inside HP could be improved."
"I would like to see better manageability and integration with third-party tools."
"The solution needs to add NFS features."
"Features that should be addressed concern the HPE functionality and the interaction with VMware."
"Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
"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."
"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 pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports."
"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."
"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."
"We have saved money using FlexPod. We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"We purchased the solution through CDW. They are a partner and knowledgeable."
"As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected."
"We have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments. We have a data center in Toronto which had ten racks on one of the new servers. This was all reduced to two racks with six chassis, which is amazing."
"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."
"The pricing is competitive. Not a major problem. We have a subscription model."
"This is an expensive system and not every customer has the kind of budget to support it."
"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 tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"This is an expensive solution."
"There are some extra costs in addition to the licensing costs for the yearly maintenance from professional third-party services."
"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
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
14%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software 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.
903,147 professionals have used our research since 2012.