HPE Primera vs IBM FlashSystem comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.8, while IBM is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.4. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 3.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 6.5% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem and HPE Primera represent two leading competitors in enterprise storage solutions. IBM FlashSystem seems to have the advantage in terms of pricing and support, while HPE Primera’s features make it a superior choice for many users who find it worth the higher cost.

Features: Users notice the performance and scalability of IBM FlashSystem, highlighting its ability to handle high workloads efficiently. HPE Primera is appreciated for its robust reliability and advanced data protection features, making it a preferred choice despite its higher price. Both products are highly effective with HPE Primera standing out for those who prioritize advanced functionality over cost efficiency.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem reviews often mention the need for enhanced analytics and better integration capabilities. HPE Primera users note a steep learning curve and express a desire for more comprehensive support documentation. IBM FlashSystem users seek more advanced technical enhancements, while HPE Primera’s areas for improvement generally relate to user onboarding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem is generally easier to deploy, with straightforward setup processes and responsive support. HPE Primera, while offering extensive features, can require more effort and time to deploy correctly. IBM FlashSystem users report quicker resolutions and more effective support interactions compared to HPE Primera.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem is noted for its competitive pricing and quicker return on investment (ROI), making it a cost-effective choice for many organizations. HPE Primera commands a higher setup cost, but users feel the long-term ROI justifies the initial investment due to superior performance and functionality.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem

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 Primera is 3.8%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem is 6.5%, down from 6.7% 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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Taufeeq Rauf

Head of IT at NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATION TECHNOLOGIES (PVT.) LTD.

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.

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OmarIsmail1

Infrastructure Technical Specialist II at Clicks Group

Offers high performance and dependable support for fast storage needs

The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 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.

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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 helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"The latency is good."

"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."

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

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

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

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

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."

"The performance is very good."

"HPE provides good support through their customer service."

"The system is stable, particularly with mission-critical solutions in place."

"Our customers have given very positive feedback about InfoSign, which is the management software for this solution."

"The most valuable feature is an all-flash system, which means the data access speed is amazing while the latency is almost nothing, and it can deliver IOPS up to 16,000."

"The most valuable feature of HPE Primera is its performance and simple replication."

More HPE Primera pros

"FlashSystem offers proven technology in a compact package."

"The performance is very good and we use this product to enhance our core system."

"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."

"It is simple to make an update."

"IBM FlashSystem has an easy to use GUI, similar to the IBM Storewize family, which make it one of the best flash storage systems in the market."

"They have a virtualization feature and, even if you do not want to buy that feature, you can have it as a trial for two to three months. If you have another brand of storage from another company, you can use this tool to transfer all your data from the old system to the new Storwize system, which really shortens the migration time."

"The most valuable features are deduplication and compression, which together, enable you to have more space."

"The most valuable features were the performance of the array, i.e., very low latency and high IOPS. Plus, the management interface is very easy to use."

More IBM FlashSystem pros

Cons

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

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

"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."

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

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

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

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"We have not had a good experience with support from HPE Primera. They can improve."

"The IOPS and throughput could be better. That's the only drawback compared to other vendors."

"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."

"HPE Primera's pricing model is an area of concern and can be considered for improvement."

"On the controller side, I would like to see NAS capabilities."

"The solution could prove the reporting."

"We used to receive hardware errors a lot of times. The ambient temperatures rise rate was approximately 35 to 55 degrees, but when it was approximately 27 or 28, we used to get errors a lot."

"Only HPE can manage the product."

More HPE Primera cons

"The solution is not able to replicate data in one-to-many scenario."

"The solution's infrastructure technology level could be PCI Express 5 instead of PCI Express 4 for the next version."

"The installation is not easy. You need to have extensive knowledge to handle it."

"When you provision a datastore auto-format takes a long time"

"Their technical support needs improvement in terms of reachability for the clients and response times. They should be more responsive and have more online platforms for support. They should make more technical information available online. There could be some kind of documentation community."

"Our model does not support compression or deduplication."

"The interface could improve in IBM FlashSystem."

"The GUI needs some improvement. An additional function that could be helpful is reducing the time it takes to delete volumes, especially if they are compressed or deduplicated."

More IBM FlashSystem cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is expensive."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

"HPE Primera is an expensive product but has competitive pricing."

"The license for HPE Primera is all-inclusive."

"The price of the solution should be cheaper."

"The pricing for HDD was good."

"I rate the product's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"The solution is cost-effective. I rate it an eight out of ten, with ten being excellent."

"HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"The cost is pretty high in terms of licensing. We pay at least $100,000 USD in licensing fees for the storage."

"The cost of the IBM FlashSystem is lower than the HPE solution."

"I would rate the pricing of this solution a four out of five."

"The pricing is competitive in our country."

"The pricing may be a bit higher than other brands. If you compare the IBM FlashSystems in midrange with Dell EMC in midrange, IBM costs a bit more, but I prefer IBM because it has more specs that I can benefit from."

"I price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable and competitive."

"The tool is cost-efficient."

"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."

More IBM FlashSystem 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%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

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'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...

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What do you like most about HPE Primera?

For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.

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What do you like most about IBM FlashSystem?

It is simple to make an update.

See all answers

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...

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What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem?

The deduplication technology in IBM FlashSystem needs significant improvement. Other vendors like NetApp ( /products/...

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

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 35% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 22% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 7% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Primera

Compared 3% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 21% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor 9000 vs IBM FlashSystem

Compared 1% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem

August 2025

Download IBM FlashSystem product report

Also Known As

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

Primera

IBM Storwize

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 introduces HPE Primera, a new storage platform designed to deliver superior simplicity, availability, and performance for mission-critical applications
HPE Primera advances the HPE Intelligent Data Platform, a portfolio of products and solutions designed to help customers transition from delivering storage to unlocking business value with intelligent data

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

IBM FlashSystem products are enterprise computer data storage systems that store data on flash memory chips. Unlike storage systems that use standard solid-state drives, IBM FlashSystem products incorporate custom hardware based on technology from the 2012 acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. This hardware provides performance, reliability, and efficiency benefits versus competitive offerings.

IBM

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

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem

July 2025

Free Report: HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem

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