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

HPE Primera vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
HPE Primera
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FlashSystem
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
NAS (5th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 3.9%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.5%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
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. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
Taufeeq Rauf - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a simple user interface and is useful for data replication
I use HPE Primera for mission-critical applications. My company uses the product as a storage solution for our machines. The availability of HPE Primera in our company is critical for us, considering that we operate in an HA environment where we can't have downtime since we need to deal with cheque clearance for banks. The product's interface is simple to use. I am satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The ease of use of the product's interface has directly had an impact on our company's operations, along with the improvement in the availability and performance of machines. Compared to HPE Primera, I work with a much more reliable storage solution like Dell PowerStore. Compared to HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore's features related to deduplication are very good, and it also offers a physical storage capacity of eight TB, which can be expanded up to forty TB. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it only after taking into consideration their usage and requirements. From the price and performance point of view, Dell PowerStore is a better choice. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.
OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers high performance and dependable support for fast storage needs
The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem ( /products/ibm-flashsystem-reviews ) is its robust back code. When integrated properly into the environment and configured according to the guidelines, it provides a very solid infrastructure that does the job on demand. Additionally, IBM FlashSystem offers competitive pricing and reliable performance. The hardware is dependable, ensuring that it functions effectively when the setup is done correctly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"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."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"I appreciate the performance."
"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 solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"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."
"When taking into account the price, maintenance required, and performance of HPE Primera, it is an effective solution."
"The greatest advantage is the support when we encounter incidents, as HPE's support is highly responsive."
"The performance is very good."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We sold Primera to a public university, and they're happy with it. They have been using it for about four months with no significant problems."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The product has better replication features than the previous products."
"HPE Primera is stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is replication...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it."
"IBM products at the enterprise level are stable solutions, with a score of nine out of ten for stability."
"The most valuable features are flexibility and performance."
"Speed (IOPS/second) – It is most vital for applications that need low latency and high speed for transferring the data."
"The technical support for this solution is good. They used to help us when the motherboard of Power Systems broke. Their response times are really fast."
"I like most of the features. Its speed, performance, and availability are valuable. We are implementing the data reduction technology the most."
"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, which together, enable you to have more space."
 

Cons

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"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."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."
"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."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"Only HPE can manage the product."
"We've encountered issues in the past where maintaining a read-only state is essential to prevent data encryption when VPN access is impacted."
"HPE Primera's deduplication area is not as good as the one offered by Dell PowerStore, making it an area where improvements are required."
"One of the drawbacks of the model we purchased is that it is not running NVMe drives. Even though they say that it is NVMe-ready, it is still on the SSD drives. The model that we purchased has only eight hard drives, and only the ones on the top could work on NVMe. The rest of them are still on the SSD. Its competitors, such as EMC and Pure Storage, are moving or have already moved to NVMe. HPE should improve this solution for NVMe. HPE should also improve IOs in this solution. IOs in HPE are weaker than Hitachi and Pure Storage."
"There really isn't any aspect of the solution that needs improvement for the customer other than its price."
"The interface needs to be more user-friendly in that sense that installation and management are still a bit on the high end."
"We have not had a good experience with support from HPE Primera. They can improve."
"Primera should be more user-friendly."
"The solution is not easy to use and could improve."
"We use some open-source tools for monitoring, such as Grafana and it should be bundled along with IBM FlashSystem."
"The data reduction pool feature sucks and is not recommended for use with heavy workloads."
"The product could be cheaper."
"The GUI for monitoring performance metrics could provide better visibility. For example, it doesn't let me segregate the IOPS per volume."
"Enterprise data storage needs improvement. They should create a feature for data and file storage."
"I think the only thing the developers can look at, is that it is limited to 25 gigabytes currently. In the next release they might want to increase that."
"Cloud file sharing is an area that needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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 VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"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'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 price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."
"The price to capacity ratio is good."
"The price of this solution is good for medium-sized and large businesses."
"Licensing fees are billed on a yearly basis and the cost of GreenLake service is included."
"I believe HPE Primera and Pure Storage are similar in price."
"HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra."
"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"Because it has high availability, the cost is above average. The cost depends upon the sizing, and every customer has a different size. It is slightly above average in terms of cost compared to its competitors, but the value add was that they could know what their maintenance cost was going to be going forward. They knew what their renewal or expansion costs would be."
"You purchase it as a bundle and the price is comparable."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The total storage capacity vs price is still quite high for the IBM Flash Array."
"The solution requires a license and could be less expensive."
"The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."
"Among IBM, Dell EMC, and Pure Storage, IBM is the cheapest. The price is also based on our location, the size of our entity, and our regular annual purchases from them. We are a very big IBM customer, so we normally get very high discounts. We are not a big customer of Pure Storage. We don't buy that much from Pure Storage per year. Everything is included in the price. There is no extra license for different functions."
"If five is a good price and one is a high price, I would rate the price a two or three out of five."
"The price of IBM FlashSystem is a little high because you pay a premium because the solution is from IBM. We had paid for the SLA prior to using the solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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 ...
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's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?
HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspectiv...
What do you like most about HPE Primera?
For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem?
Many factors affect purchasing directly from IBM, often involving a multi-step process. Customers, especially in bank...
What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?
The deduplication technology in IBM FlashSystem needs significant improvement. Other vendors like NetApp ( /products/...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Primera
IBM Storwize
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
Celero, Friedhelm Loh Group, Clarks, Mingkang Natregro Health Food Group, Sofia, Etisalat Fights Fraud, UF Health Shands Hospital, Generali, Elecon Engineering Company Limited, Ventiv , Technology, CPFL Energia, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., SciQuest, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Paddy Power, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Interconnect Services, Severstal IP-Only AB, PVU Group GmbH
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.