Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

HPE Nimble Storage vs VMware vSAN comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (14th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
HPE Nimble Storage
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (10th)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

All-Flash Storage
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ajit Pratap Kundan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables efficient multi-environment cluster deployment and resource management with versatile features
While VMware vSAN is quite comprehensive, if we are running multiple infrastructures, applications, databases, and other elements, having a diagnostic tool to identify the actual problem area, whether application-side or infrastructure-side, would be beneficial. A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate the performance."
"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 standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."
"The management software that runs in the cloud is called InfoSight and it is very good. It is similar to machine learning software that monitors your hardware."
"InfoSight is helpful because it is proactive support."
"This product is very easy to set up."
"The scalability is straightforward."
"Their tech support is very professional, know their products, know what they do, and they are very informative in terms of keeping the customer updated."
"The support from HPE is ten out of ten."
"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."
"The solution runs pretty fast."
"Data management and recovery processes are the most valuable features."
"The ability to have an HA cluster in the absence of a shared storage device or SAN."
"I have used VMware for 15 years and I never had any problems with stability."
"Storage policies are used to perform operations in the VMs. This feature allows you to create storage policies for VMs to get performance, high availability, I/O policies, etc."
"It is easy to find information out there, not only from searching the web, but even the times I have engaged VMware support."
"Overall the solution is very good."
"It easily integrates with all types of storage."
"We can scale it very easily for a test environment. We were able to segment our DMZ so it wasn't connected to anything, which we really liked."
 

Cons

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."
"It is on the expensive side."
"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 UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"It was a bit expensive."
"Web GUI should be HTML5."
"We have had some stability issues with one array which has happened twice during subsequent software updates but is due to a bad Postgres database."
"It would be ideal if all these enterprise-class high-performance products would come at a cheaper price."
"I would like to see the network portion of the product improve, especially with some of the things which are coming out from Aruba and HPE. Both are innovating more of an automated networking. I would like to see our Nimble meld into that and do some automated networking."
"The HPE Nimble Storage could have better integration with monitoring and machine learning system information solutions."
"I would like to see more integrations."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"I see room for improvement for vSAN just around general hardware compatibility and expanding that sort of matrix."
"Ease of administration is one area where vSAN could be improved."
"VMware vSAN could improve by having better integration with other vendors and the storage is limited, I prefer it to the traditional storage."
"Integration could be better."
"There is always a challenge with their firmware."
"One of the things that we've had challenges with are when we place hosts into maintenance mode. Sometimes doing so triggers large re-sync processes which can be time-consuming and which have, at times, pushed the capacity to the threshold. I definitely think making some changes in that area would provide some big improvements."
"The monitoring feature in VMware vSAN could be better."
"vSAN itself is a great storage platform, but one of the issues with it is that you have to be fully locked into the VMware package to use it. We're going to be deploying 72 Kubernetes nodes, and we're not going to buy VMware licenses for 72 of them, just so they can access vSAN. That's what we're using the Pure for. Opening it up so you could have vSAN as a data store, use it as a data lake, hit it with an NFS, S3 from outside the VMware ecosystem, would be great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"The product is expensive."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"It is a CAPEX investment. Over the anticipated lifespan, I would say the pricing is $10,000 a month."
"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."
"I think HPE Nimble Storage is less expensive than Primera and is the best solution for Venezuela."
"The pricing for this product is somewhat high."
"The pricing is better than some of the competitors, such as Dell EMC."
"It is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"It is very pricey. You pay for what you get, and this storage solution is great. It is well worth the cost."
"Competitive. No licensing. Since everything is included."
"It is not that expensive, and it is not even cheap. If it is designed in a proper way, it has good pricing, but if you do oversizing, the price will be high. There are different licensing models."
"The product’s pricing is a bit higher than other solutions."
"Perhaps a bundle, like Essentials, would allow more businesses to make the leap to the product."
"vSAN has many versions with standard and advanced including Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. Regarding the Enterprise and the Advanced, it could be lower."
"Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective."
"This solution requires the purchase of a license."
"The price of VMware vSAN is expensive and there is an annual license required."
"This is a cost-effective product. It's a bit cheaper than the other solutions."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
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...
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...
What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?
The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an e...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We resea...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Nimble Storage
vSAN
 

Overview

 

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
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: June 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.