HPE Nimble Storage vs SolidFire comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.4, while NetApp is ranked #27 with an average rating of 9.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

SolidFire and HPE Nimble Storage are robust storage solutions. HPE Nimble Storage seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and superior performance.

Features:SolidFire's flexibility and scalability are notable advantages. It offers efficient support and competitive pricing that appeal to cost-conscious buyers. HPE Nimble Storage impresses with its predictive analytics, adaptive performance, and innovative features, which are considered more advanced than those of SolidFire.

Room for Improvement:SolidFire could improve its integration options and analytics capabilities. It also needs to expand its feature set. HPE Nimble Storage requires a more straightforward initial setup, better customer support documentation, and deployment enhancements. These improvements would make practical deployment easier for users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:SolidFire is praised for its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer service. HPE Nimble Storage also has a relatively smooth deployment but receives mixed reviews on customer service response times and support quality. SolidFire is seen as slightly better in terms of initial deployment ease and support efficiency.

Pricing and ROI:SolidFire is recognized for its more attractive pricing model and quicker ROI. HPE Nimble Storage, while more expensive, offers good value over time due to its advanced features and overall performance. Users feel the investment in HPE Nimble Storage is justified despite the higher initial cost.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Nimble Storage vs. SolidFire Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. SolidFire

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 October 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Nimble Storage is 2.2%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.2%, down from 0.3% 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	2.2%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.0%
SolidFire	0.2%
Other	96.6%

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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Ramil Cerrada

Solution lead at Globe Mobile

A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance

The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

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

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"InfoSight has helped us resolved an issue where the snapshots were growing too big."

"Scalability is another reason we chose to go with Nimble: upgrading to another storage array. If we need higher capacity or throughput, we can just replace controllers, we don't have to replace or forklift-upgrade the whole chassis."

"Any updates are just part of your subscription, so you don't have to buy add-ons for new features. You're continually adding value to it."

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

"InfoSight has identified controller failures or performance issues."

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

"The most valuable features are the duplication and compression traffic. We have second storage that we can use for the synchronization of data between the data centers."

"Their remote management and understanding when things are starting to go wrong and their ability to fix them before the customer even knows, this has been a big positive when a customer makes the decision to go with Nimble"

More HPE Nimble Storage pros

"Templates are already predefined for it. If you're coding it up, it will take two days. You can pick up a template right there from the API, and it just works for you. Implementation done in 10 minutes."

"I would say in terms of architecture and in terms of functionality, the product is quite good."

"Individual settings you can put on each individual volume, if you want to do that."

"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."

"Being able to provide quality of service as promised."

"The most valuable feature is the performance, as well as how you manage performance on the system."

"SolidFire provides seamless performance across your storage system when you need to scale up. Other storage systems do not do that."

"The dashboard is such that you don't need to be a storage expert to administer it."

More SolidFire pros

Cons

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

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

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

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

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"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."

"The software layer has to improve."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I think the scalability of HPE Nimble Storage could be improved."

"The quality of technical support depends on which member of the support team you speak with."

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

"I would like to see greater integration with Microsoft's Hyper-V platform."

"I would like to have more administrative rights, for example, root-level administrative rights to the underlying OS of the storage array. We want more access to the kind of underlying infrastructure of the storage array rather than relying on support. However, most companies are looking to have more managed solutions which is the opposite direction of what I want."

"The dashboard can be improved."

"I would like to see an added feature to auto-fix, or a dynamic alerting system on storage."

"A feature that would be a nice addition to the next release would be a filer option. A filer option so that you could connect the sim or NFS or chips like NetApp does for NAS functionality."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

"For example, the ease of use with the reporting. Right now it's not impossible, but you have to know Sequel. It's a little time consuming to get those customized reports in there."

"SolidFire should start from two nodes instead of the four nodes. That's the only thing. In a lot of solutions, we have to use four nodes, that's the better thing. But as a starting point, two is better. That's why their starting point is expensive."

"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."

"The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through.""

"A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do."

"SolidFire could improve in terms of hardware robustness."

"The technical support is really bad and has to be improved."

"We have a large fiber channel infrastructure, and that's one area that we haven't seen implemented in SolidFire, its more iSCSI."

More SolidFire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"The product is expensive."

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

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

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"Nimble has really met all of our needs and at a price we could afford. It certainly wasn't as expensive as a lot of other all-flash solutions that we could have bought."

"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."

"HPE Nimble Storage didn't require a license at the time."

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

"I would classify it as an expensive product."

"It is more expensive than one of its competitors."

"HPE Nimble Storage is more expensive than some of the other solutions, such as Pure Storage. They charge more for every feature than other vendors."

"The solution is a little pricey compared to others on the market."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"

"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."

"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."

"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."

"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."

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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%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

No data available

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	6
Large Enterprise	16

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 ...

See all answers

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 SolidFire?

The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?

It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay fo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolidFire?

There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 22% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% 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

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Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

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NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 100% of the time

More SolidFire 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

SolidFire

September 2025

Download SolidFire product report

Also Known As

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

Nimble Storage

No data available

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

SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

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

California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. SolidFire

September 2025

Free Report: HPE Nimble Storage vs. SolidFire

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