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 #11 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.3. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.8% 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 February 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 2.8%, 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	2.8%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.5%
IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe	0.6%
Other	95.1%

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 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."

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"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."

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

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The features that I have found most valuable are the artificial intelligence for the storage inside of the software and firmware because customers do not like functionalities which require manual interruption."

"HPE Primera has good integration. All the users are using HP servers and some systems, such as Synergy, which integrate well into the solution."

"When taking into account the price, maintenance required, and performance of HPE Primera, it is an effective solution."

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

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

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"HPE Primera is stable."

"Primera's main advantage is its support for NVM drives and normal flash drives. It has some sort of AI analysis that automatically tells us how to optimize the performance."

More HPE Primera pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its upgrades, as we don't have to do much homework because of its different controllers."

"It is a very stable solution."

"It is a very stable product. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten because we did not face any issues in the last three years."

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

"Good performance with a user-friendly UI."

"What I like about the product are its high availability, maximum efficiency in performance, and its ability to handle a high level of I/O operations."

"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."

"There are many valuable features of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMele I have found to meet my needs. Specifically, the maintenance cycle is a standout feature of this solution. The main component of the IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is the maintenance of the batteries, which have a predetermined and reliable four-year life cycle. This is in stark contrast to other solutions that may use spinning disks, which can fail unexpectedly, causing unwanted downtime and maintenance. Having a predictable maintenance cycle is a significant advantage and has made this solution a preferred choice for me."

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"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 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."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There are certain features that require engineering-level access, which should be accessible to storage admins as well."

"Price is always important in Turkey, so HPE could lower the price to keep it competitive. It's not as competitive as other solutions in this market."

"Like most storage, we want to see flash become more and more stable. Like any flash that uses MLC or TLC techniques, over time, the more writes you have, the less usable the storage becomes. They try to plan for this and have a lot of extra space in the arrays, but over time, their performance does degrade. This is true for any flash storage."

"The solution could prove the reporting."

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

"Some application solutions can be more acceptable on the HPE Primera site."

"Only HPE can manage the product."

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

More HPE Primera cons

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

"The support could be better."

"The solution's compression feature could be better."

"I would like to see IBM products become more affordable because they can be quite expensive, which limits their accessibility to a broader customer base."

"Deduplication and compression should be improved."

"There is a tool provided by IBM for repairing batteries which can only be utilized by those who have an IBM technical advisor under service contract. However, for individuals who do not have such a contract, the tool can be difficult to use and requires a zip file copy. I believe that it would be greatly beneficial if the tool were made more user-friendly and accessible for all individuals who need to repair batteries."

"I would like to have replication functionality built directly in the product, rather than having to use a separate device for this."

"IBM's support is not good. I experienced a big problem where I opened the console IBM Storage and would see that something was broken. I called the call centers, and I said, "I have a problem. My drive is not working." They want me to give them the serial number, I gave it to them and they told me "I cannot find your product. Your product is not here.""

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"The product is expensive."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The cost is $75,000 for a three-year contract."

"HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra."

"The price of the solution should be cheaper."

"HPE Primera is a little bit higher than Dell PowerStore...HPE Primera costs around 80,000 USD."

"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."

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

"HPE Primera service is cost-effective."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The solution's price is competitive."

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

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"Compared to other solutions, the cost of IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe is reasonable, with a one-time payment of around $70,000. However, additional support is available for $25,000 for three years. The overall maintenance cost is steep."

"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."

"There are pricing options from the mid-rand to the high-range, of which the suitability depends upon the requirements."

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

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Marketing Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

Recreational Facilities/Services 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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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 15% 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 26% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 24% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

NetApp AFF 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

HPE Alletra Storage vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FlashSystem 9100 NVMe Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

February 2026

Download HPE Primera product report

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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