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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
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure for SAP HANA (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 12.5%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE ConvergedSystem is 11.1%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FlexPod XCS12.5%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.1%
Other76.4%
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 ease of expansion is the most valuable feature."
"The solution can be innovative when it comes to compute storage and networking. FlexPod is very flexible and innovative. We can design it as we like."
"The support that we get from NetApp is second to none."
"The flexibility and data deduplication have been the biggest practical applications."
"Delivery speed and integration speeds have increased. The solution has enabled us to run mission-critical workloads. Our SQL cluster is on there, which is high IOPS. All-in-one solution is great for when you don't have a lot of staff, with multiple disciplines."
"The main advantage is consolidating everything into a single rack, which helps optimize power consumption, especially in CRM."
"The amount of time it saved us on the setup, maintaining the system and the fact that we haven't had to do a whole lot of troubleshooting with it makes it valuable."
"It became a very strategic relationship, almost like a partnership."
"It's a great solution that is very secure, and very easy to configure."
"The storage, BladeSystems, Virtual Connect, and simplicity with hyper-converged solutions are the most valuable features of this solution."
"One of the biggest things is, the fact that it can be a turn-key solution."
"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."
"Over the last four years we had a 99.9% uptime."
"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 tool's most valuable features are stability and scalability."
"The most valuable features of HPE ConvergedSystem are scalability and resilience."
 

Cons

"We would like to see the automation improved because there has been a learning curve having to create the workflows."
"Make it easier to refresh hardware. We got to the point where we couldn't fix vulnerabilities without refreshing the hardware, then that became a little too expensive for us to do."
"The price is something that we are still working on. At some point, it's a bit more expensive than the solution that we had before, as far as I know."
"Product price is always a concern."
"It takes a very sophisticated group of people to run and maintain NetApp and Cisco products."
"I would like to see programmability into a SaaS-based offering, as I know Cisco's going in a lot of directions with their Intersight application."
"We would like something like a FlexPod Express; we want a smaller version for small offices."
"I think it is sufficient for now, but in the next generation, I'd just like to see bigger, faster, and better."
"This is an expensive system and not every customer has the kind of budget to support it."
"My biggest pet peeve with the HC250 are the descriptions that they put on our parts list."
"I would like to see better manageability and integration with third-party tools."
"The tool has shortcomings in its performance monitoring part."
"There is some scope for improvement in support. The response time could be better."
"The solution needs to add NFS features."
"The interface is not fully integrated with the ESXi, which is something that could be improved."
"Pricing is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The NetApp portion was a $5 million investment five years ago. That has served the customer well over five and a half years."
"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."
"The scalability is very expensive."
"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."
"We purchased the solution through CDW. They are a partner and knowledgeable."
"It's expensive, but when you pay for enterprise support and enterprise products, you have to pay the big bucks."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is sensitive."
"This is an expensive system and not every customer has the kind of budget to support it."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"The pricing is competitive. Not a major problem. We have a subscription model."
"This is an expensive solution."
"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."
"There are some extra costs in addition to the licensing costs for the yearly maintenance from professional third-party services."
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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%
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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: April 2026.
896,942 professionals have used our research since 2012.