HPE Nimble Storage vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.5, while NetApp is ranked #26 with an average rating of 9.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

HPE Nimble Storage and NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays compete as robust storage solutions. HPE Nimble Storage has pricing and support advantages, while NetApp EF-Series excels in features and scalability.

Features: HPE Nimble Storage offers advanced data protection, efficient data deduplication, and straightforward deployment. NetApp EF-Series provides exceptional performance, scalability, and integration with third-party solutions.

Room for Improvement: HPE Nimble Storage could enhance disaster recovery, third-party integration, and user interface. NetApp EF-Series needs better third-party integration, disaster recovery improvements, and a more intuitive management console.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Nimble Storage is noted for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. NetApp EF-Series also offers easy deployment but has mixed reviews on customer service responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Nimble Storage is often seen as more cost-effective with quicker ROI. NetApp EF-Series may have higher initial costs but offers significant long-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Nimble Storage vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

July 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 August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.3%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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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Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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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

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

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

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"In the 20 days that we have been using this solution, it has been stable."

"It is easy to use. Not too complicated."

"We have found the advantage of it is the easy, rapid setup, but also that it is very easy to manage."

"The solution is scalable."

"The replay and IOPS work well."

"If a ransomware or enterprise-level attack happens, my infrastructure remains totally secure. If any virtual machine gets damaged or collapses, we have built a backup solution, which will take a minute to restore the same version of HPE Nimble Storage in our company."

"Nimble Storage is a great storage solution which will give you a lot insight on the growth of your storage."

"The setup was very, very simple. When we got our AF5000, no kidding, we had it up in production within two hours"

More HPE Nimble Storage pros

"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."

"The product's initial setup phase can be managed easily and completed in 20 to 30 minutes. It is one of the fastest storage tools that you can implement."

"We use it for our VDI environment, and have not had any complaints with it."

"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."

"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."

"I would have to say performance at this point, because the application it is based on is so diverse."

"We do a lot of in-house, application-dependent type things, where we find the different niches to the different things. Certain things they do better. We've found that it actually does very well on some of our higher-end applications."

"The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"It is on the expensive side."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I have problems with the next servicer. For example, I have a new device and it needs to connect to Nimble."

"More reporting is probably the only thing that is really lacking. It would be helpful to go to the business and say, "This is how we've evolved with our solution, and this is why we need more." Being able to put forward a business case with data to back it up, essentially."

"We are doing a hybrid and are moving some machines to Microsoft Azure to run in hybrid mode. We are checking the availability of extra software-defined storage so that we can configure it."

"The backup solution that they are using now probably has not been deduped."

"Pure Storages have some option, which allows us the ability to directly download that host inventory and volume report. We can receive everything directly generated from the storage itself. We do not need to use some other web browser or something. If HPE Nimble Storage could do the same it would be a benefit."

"I would like to see SSL Certification."

"Its pricing could be better. It's expensive."

"I’d like to see in-line deduplication extended to Nimble non-flash (called “Hybrid”) arrays, even if it’s only the C500 and higher controllers that support it."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."

"They could improve overall scalability through performance. Denser capacity, which is doable, it is what the competition is doing."

"Their problems are on the software and the controlling of the storage where they lack segmentation and federation."

"Better support technicians for CAPP."

"I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"I would like to see higher-capacity drives, as they come out; I have heard that 15 TB are out on a different NetApp series. Getting those on the EFs would be nice."

"The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"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."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

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

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"From a price/performance perspective, Nimble simply can’t be beat. From a TCO perspective, the stability alone pays for itself."

"The price has room for improvement."

"It is a CAPEX investment. Over the anticipated lifespan, I would say the pricing is $10,000 a month."

"The pricing for this product is somewhat high."

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

"We pay a one-time fee for terabyte licenses, and the support is paid yearly."

"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."

"My company has opted for HPE GreenLake payment model, meaning the billing is done on a quarterly basis."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

"The pricing of the solution is expensive, considering the initial investment required...At the end of the product's life cycle, it could get cheaper, but the initial investment in NetApp makes it one of the most expensive solutions."

"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."

"One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to renew the license."

"They provide licenses upon purchase, so there's no need for additional licenses. Regarding additional expenses apart from the standard licensing fees, such as for support or maintenance, there aren't any. Updates take around twenty to thirty minutes, including rebooting the systems, and we haven't faced any problems with the NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We utilize various other storages like Fujitsu, IBM, and Dalian SIP, but the NetApp EF-Series stands out as we've had no issues throughout the entire year of usage."

"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."

"Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive with other vendors here in Egypt."

"he price point that we're getting is very competitive in the market. Since we are buying in such a large quantity, they gave us a huge discount."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Performing Arts

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 25% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 14% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 10% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 2% of the time

More HPE Nimble Storage Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 26% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 13% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage

August 2025

Download HPE Nimble Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

August 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

Nimble Storage

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

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

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

July 2025

Free Report: HPE Nimble Storage vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Nimble Storage vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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