HPE Nimble Storage vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.4, while IBM is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

HPE Nimble Storage and IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are leading storage solutions with distinct features. HPE Nimble Storage has an advantage with pricing and customer support, while IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe stands out due to its advanced features and high performance.

Features: HPE Nimble Storage offers predictive analytics, ease of integration, and strong customer support. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe provides high performance, NVMe architecture, and advanced data protection capabilities.

Room for Improvement: HPE Nimble Storage requires better scalability, improved technical documentation, and enhanced integration options. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe needs more intuitive management tools, a simpler user interface, and streamlined deployment processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Nimble Storage is valued for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe offers deployment flexibility but has a steep learning curve. Customer service feedback favors HPE Nimble Storage due to its responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Nimble Storage is cost-effective with a strong ROI and competitive setup cost. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe has higher initial costs justified by substantial long-term ROI. The initial cost difference is significant but countered by IBM's performance.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

September 2025

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.3%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Nimble Storage	2.3%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.1%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe	0.5%
Other	96.1%

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Ajit Pratap Kundan

PreSales Lead- Government & Defense at Accops Systems Pvt Ltd

A tool that offers protection against ransomware and other enterprise-level attacks

HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high, making it one of its downsides. HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high compared with any HCI solutions, like HPE's SimpliVity, Nutanix, VMware, or Dell VxRail. A person requires a special skill set to operate HPE Nimble Storage because there are hardly any solutions similar to Nimble Storage in the market. The product's support can be made faster and more responsive if HPE trains its partners in such a way that they acquire more expertise on Nimble Storage through the training sessions. HPE Nimble Storage is dependent on only VMware vSphere Hypervisor. In the future, HPE has to make Nimble Storage feasible with other hypervisors like Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix Acropolis, and RHEV, meaning it should be hypervisor agnostic.

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MohammedIsmail

Datacenter Manager at Tracker Connect

Enhanced storage performance and an easy setup with compression challenges

We use IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe as a storage device in the IT industry The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance. The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could also be improved as it's been…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"The solution is scalable."

"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"InfoSight has allowed us to centralize our management, understanding how it correlates to the array. It has identified a network issue in the network configuration of ESXi hosts. It enables us to get servers back up faster by 25 percent."

"It's very easy to set up. It's very stable, and it has got great deduplication, especially for hypervisor users."

"It's given us more time to do the important things, less time worrying about SANs and failures and picking up the pieces. It just works."

"The stability is awesome. The product has always been reliable. It has been 100 percent up. We have never had any downtime with it. Even if a controller fails due to our firmware or whatever, it rolls over to the second one and keeps us running."

"HPE Nimble Storage is a very organized and customer-oriented tool."

"The deployment is fast."

"InfoSight provides real-time reporting, it gives you information about your different volumes, how the arrays are being used, I/O, performance in general."

"They have really thought through their solution. They've covered everything."

More HPE Nimble Storage pros

"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its upgrades, as we don't have to do much homework because of its different controllers."

"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."

"The FlashCore modules support more value to the architecture due to their unique characteristics."

"It is a very stable solution."

"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."

"The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance."

"It is a very stable product. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten because we did not face any issues in the last three years."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"It is on the expensive side."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I wish they would put the InfoSight page back the way it was. I got in it for the first time about two years ago, and it looked the same for about a year and a half. Then, about six months ago, it changed. There are different options now. I can still get to where I need to go, but it feels like it takes longer, where before it didn't. Also, I felt like I had a lot more options before. I have to do a lot more to digging now to get to where I need to go. I just wish they had their old page back."

"When sizing the array based on requirements the option to add more network cards for throughput would be something to help clients."

"The amount of firmware updates released seem excessive."

"HPE Nimble Storage provides only SAN-based storage and does not support NAS-based storage."

"I'd also like to see them incorporate tools that let me get granular with the VMs. I want to see an individual VM, I want to Snapshot and recover an individual VM."

"The HPE Nimble Storage could have better integration with monitoring and machine learning system information solutions."

"HPE Nimble Storage should improve its latency. It is expensive."

"There is a new version of the Nimble and 3PAR systems called Alletra and they have a lot of new features."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."

"Deduplication and compression should be improved."

"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."

"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."

"There could be a possibility of not requiring to buy a new box while upgrading to a newer version."

"The ZIO interface could be improved."

"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."

"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The product is expensive."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I believe the array, maintenance, and everything totaled around $140,000 dollars."

"The price is negotiable and when we first received the quote it was expensive, but after dealing with them and receiving a discount, the price is reasonable."

"We paid about $80,000 for our permanent site licence."

"The pricing is expensive, although we do not pay anything in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"I would classify it as an expensive product."

"If we had stuck with EMC, we would have spent a lot more. We have EMC in-house, we have a bunch of them. Switching to Nimble saved me millions of dollars over the past three years... Nimble fills a need for performance within a budget that is in the sub-million dollar range."

"We don't require a license. If we used HPE InfoSight, then we would require a license, but for our needs, we don't need one."

"It's expensive. It could be cheaper. I'd rate it a five out of ten in terms of pricing. We're on a yearly licensing. I haven't come across any additional costs. We just paid for three-year support."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele can be considered affordable when taking into account the operating system that is required for it to function properly. This operating system, which is licensed by IBM, may carry a higher cost, but it is worth the investment for larger corporate entities, such as insurance companies, Fortune Five companies, and banks, who make up a significant portion of their target market. The FlashSystems are designed for larger corporations and multinational enterprises, and may not be the most cost-effective solution for smaller businesses."

"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."

"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."

"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."

"The solution's price is competitive."

"The product has an average cost."

"Compared to other solutions, the cost of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable, with a one-time payment of around $70,000. However, additional support is available for $25,000 for three years. The overall maintenance cost is steep."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

10%

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	42
Large Enterprise	40

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

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How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...

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Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?

HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...

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What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?

The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.

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What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves ne...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The tool is expensive, though I do not know the specific licensing costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could al...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 21% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

TrueNAS X-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 4% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 8% of the time

More HPE Nimble Storage Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 31% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 27% of the time

Hitachi VSP E Series vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

October 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage

October 2025

Download HPE Nimble Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

October 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Nimble Storage

IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective All-Flash Storage Array solution that aims to enable organizations to reliably store and access their data. Organizations across a wide variety of industries trust Nimble Storage to assist them with all of their data storage-based needs. It both tracks all of the IT architecture that an organization uses and protects that architecture from a variety of digital threats.

HPE Nimble Storage Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy HPE Nimble Storage include:

Increased security. Nimble Storage provides organizations with powerful layers of protection. It leverages predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep businesses from suffering harm related to emerging threats. The AI and ML software identifies threats before they can threaten a user’s data.

Reduced costs and increase profits. Businesses that deploy Nimble Storage find that their overhead costs end up being significantly reduced by up to 49%. One of the reasons for this is that Nimble Storage uses a “pay as you go” subscription model which means that users never pay for more storage than they actually need.

Ease of use. Nimble Storage is simple for administrators to utilize. They can install it without any kind of outside assistance. It is also simple for the average administrator to manage without specialized training.

HPE Nimble Storage Features

Artificial intelligence. The backbone of Nimble Storage’s IT infrastructure is its AI software. The HPE InfoSight feature makes it so that administrators don’t need to make guesses when managing their data storage. It offers users suggestions as to what they can do to improve their storage performance.

Scaling. Nimble Storage gives users the ability to scale their data storage so that it appropriately meets their needs. They can both “scale up” or increase the sheer amount of data that they can store at a given time and “scale out” or increase their ability to perform effectively.

Hybrid storage. Nimble Storage has the ability to store data both on the cloud and on-premises so as to meet an organization’s storage requirements. Its multi-cloud feature enables users to seamlessly manage all of their data storage and utilization operations with ease.

Reviews from Real Users

HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ease of use and its powerful InfoSight analytics feature.

Andrew B., Head Of Information Technology at Zambia National Building Society, writes, “It's a very easy solution. Whenever I have a question, I find they have already provided a solution for it.”

Prataparao D., Technical Solution's Consultant for HPE Storage Devices at Karvy Innotech, says, “HPE Nimble Storage uses the InfoSight platform and it is useful because we can identify the faults and can analyze the performance. It has many other features. This feature is the best that I have observed from HPE Nimble Storage.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

IBM FlashSystem 9100 combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize - all in a powerful 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multicloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage allowing you to easily add in the multicloud solutions that best support your business.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Ace Relocation, Atkins Nutritionals, Berkeley Research Group, Canadian International School, City of Hot Springs, Clackamas County, Corona-Norco Unified School District, Ideal Integrations, Linear Technology, P&O Maritime, Retail Apparel Group (RAG), Virtual Radiologic

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

September 2025

Free Report: HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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