HPE Primera vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.8, while IBM is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.3. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.6% mindshare in AFS, compared to IBM’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and HPE Primera are both leading enterprise storage solutions. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe has the upper hand in performance and scalability, whereas HPE Primera stands out due to its data protection and reliability.

Features: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is highlighted for its high-speed performance, scalability, and NVMe technology. HPE Primera receives positive feedback for its advanced data protection, efficiency in handling mixed workloads, and automated management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe users suggest enhancements in integration capabilities with third-party tools, improved documentation, and better customer support. HPE Primera users seek improvements in the complexity of configuration, a more intuitive user interface, and reduced deployment time.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is noted for its straightforward deployment but receives mixed feedback on customer service responsiveness. HPE Primera offers a more complex deployment but excels in providing excellent customer service support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe users find the initial setup cost reasonable and report a good return on investment. HPE Primera, though slightly more expensive upfront, is valued for its long-term ROI due to its reliability and features.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

February 2026

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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 March 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 2.6%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Primera	2.6%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.6%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe	0.6%
Other	95.2%

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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Roberto Rodrigues

Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Used for shared storage and has good scalability

Recently, we had many issues with HPE Primera storage, mainly in the leveling process, which caused many problems for the customers. In this architecture, the full application running over this storage gets stuck when one disk fails. We noticed that one leveling process, ungrouping process, and grouping process took around 12 hours to conclude. It was not a good experience. The main issue was that we dimensioned the solution to 1,300 IOPS. The solution has 10 + 2 spare disks, and when one disc fails, the application gets stuck because the IOPS moves to 5,000 IOPS when it happens. We noticed some specific limitations with the solution's graphical interface, which was not rich. The solution's main problem was the grouping and ungrouping process. We confirmed that the problem was with HPE Primera by stopping the whole application while labeling. No IOPS was consumed from the application to the storage, even though the IOPS was 5,000. This means that 5,000 was just for the leveling of one disk. If two disks had failed, the problem would have been bigger than we experienced.

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MohammedIsmail

Datacenter Manager at Tracker Connect

Enhanced storage performance and an easy setup with compression challenges

We use IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe as a storage device in the IT industry The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance. The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could also be improved as it's been…

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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

"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"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."

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

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

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"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 greatest advantage is the support when we encounter incidents, as HPE's support is highly responsive."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to provide the IOPS ratio which is required by a lot of our customers."

"HPE Primera is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes."

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

"The initial setup is simple."

"HPE Primera is stable."

"It is stable and reliable."

More HPE Primera pros

"The features I find most valuable include its use for storage and performance."

"The most valuable feature of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the snapshot. We use it daily for all of the storage units."

"Its ease of use, performance, and hardware compression is very useful feature."

"It is a very stable solution."

"A key feature is that compared to storage systems that we've been familiar with over decades, IBM simply does not fail. The reason is that IBM is the only manufacturer that engineers its own flash module, and there is a key architectural difference from everything else that we have seen in the market. The difference is that the flash module has the computational capability, which allows reliability and capacity enhancements to be uploaded from the main controllers and run in each module. So, each of the flash drives becomes its own little storage system, and that is extremely effective architecture. In this field, with this type of system, IBM has made a statement. They've never had one of these modules cause an outage. So, the failure rates on these things are just in a whole different universe from what we were accustomed to."

"The most valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe are its steady performance and usefulness in high-traffic environments."

"IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is one of the leading storage systems in the world...I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten."

"The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves nearly 30% of the bank's capacity."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

"It is on the expensive side."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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 tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The solution has good performance but it could improve further."

"Increasing the IOPS and throughput values would make the product even better. Improving the scalability of HPE Primera is also recommended."

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

"The interface needs to be more user-friendly in that sense that installation and management are still a bit on the high end."

"There really isn't any aspect of the solution that needs improvement for the customer other than its price."

"I would like to see improved training offered with HPE Primera."

"They could work to make scalability easier."

"Only HPE can manage the product."

More HPE Primera cons

"I'd like to be able to connect to tape drives behind the storage device to back up the tape if need be. We have all of our storage running in all-flash, and we make a copy on tape. Currently, when we want to hook up tape drives, we have to add some extra equipment, which is a little bit complex. We want IBM to add a feature where we could install a tape into the storage so that we can connect it through a single pane of glass. We'd like to have a feature in the IBM flash storage system so that we can connect backup tape drives through the IBM storage system and we can manage the backup tape from the storage system."

"The storage system itself should have built-in capabilities for different ransomware attacks."

"IBM is currently not offering volume-based encryption or compression, while other brands or IBM's competitors are doing it."

"The tool's architecture is complex. It also needs to add data utilization reports."

"There could be a possibility of not requiring to buy a new box while upgrading to a newer version."

"The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best."

"The pricing should be more competitive."

"The support could be better."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe 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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The product is expensive."

"The price of this solution is good for medium-sized and large businesses."

"There is only a one-time license purchase needed and no additional costs. If HP could reduce the training cost, then that would be advantageous to the seller."

"It’s a reasonable choice. When compared to other options, we've found it to be accessible and within our means."

"The price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."

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

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

"The pricing for HDD was good."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"Price-wise, the solution offers excellent pricing to its users. In short, the prices offered by the solution are competitive compared to similar solutions."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is less than Dell. For upgrades, the Dell solutions are more expensive."

"The price of the FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable."

"The solution's price is competitive."

"Compared to its competitors, IBM's offering is the most cost-effective."

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"It's a lot less costly than cloud storage. People get surprised by the cost of cloud storage, which is extremely expensive and four or five times the cost of storage on-premises. People don't realize what they're spending on storage until they start getting bills from Amazon, Microsoft, and others. This is a good way to reduce your cloud storage expenses."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing an eight."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Marketing Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

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	19
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	5

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...

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 9100 NVMe?

The storage serves the virtual environment. Most of our applications run in the virtual environment, and it serves ne...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The tool is expensive, though I do not know the specific licensing costs.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe?

The solution's compression needs to be improved, as it's not the best. Furthermore, support from the partner could al...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 25% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 25% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 20% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

February 2026

Download IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe product report

Also Known As

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

Primera

IBM FlashSystem 9100, FlashSystem 9100

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 9100 combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize - all in a powerful 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multicloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage allowing you to easily add in the multicloud solutions that best support your business.

IBM

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

February 2026

Free Report: HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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