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HPE Primera vs NetApp AFF comparison

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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
15th
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
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
311
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 4.2%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 9.3%, down from 9.8% 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.
Anna Sofo - PeerSpot reviewer
Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency
I like NetApp AFF's deduplication. The solution's AutoSupport feature is efficient and effective because customers are notified of potential issues before they experience problems with NetApp. The support is sold based on metro clusters, so they guarantee the client's business continuity. NetApp has an Active IQ app that allows you to get information on your smartphone.

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."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The solution is scalable."
"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."
"HPE Primera is used for shared storage."
"HPE Primera is an all-flash storage product that's very stable and has a higher storage capacity. It can also give better ROI compared to NetApp."
"The system is stable, particularly with mission-critical solutions in place."
"HPE Primera is scalable."
"All of the capabilities of the hardware such as replication, snapshot, and the specific features are all included from the start as opposed to being on another license."
"The performance is very good."
"Our customers have given very positive feedback about InfoSign, which is the management software for this solution."
"HPE Primera is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes."
"The performance. The flash performance helps move data pretty fast."
"I think it is a very stable product."
"The most valuable features for AFF are the speed, durability, back up, the time, the workloads that we are using currently are much faster than what they used to be. We're getting a lot of different things out of All Flash."
"It should scale far beyond our needs. I don't think we will ever hit the edge of it."
"We just migrated two petabytes of data storage from IBM over to NetApp All Flash. Some of the performance improvement that we've seen is 100 times I/O and microsecond latency."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is data protection and snapshot technology for backup."
"The ease of use, the SnapMirror capabilities, the cloning, and the efficiencies are all good features."
"Over the past 18 years, it has been extremely easy to upgrade to newer products and technology. We can upgrade as we move along. So, we have been able to keep up with the newest technology with zero downtime."
 

Cons

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"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 need better data deduplication."
"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."
"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."
"HPE Primera's pricing model is an area of concern and can be considered for improvement."
"The price of the product is an area of concern. From an improvement perspective, the solution should be made more affordable in terms of price."
"The IOPS and throughput could be better. That's the only drawback compared to other vendors."
"HPE Primera is not good enough as a storage solution as it does not provide a good NAS storage."
"The solution has good performance but it could improve further."
"The product’s price needs improvement."
"We don't have any challenges with NetApp. We only need to update it on emerging software and versions that are put out or any enhancements that they've included or things that they've deprecated. NetApp's product is superior, so our engineers must stay on top of all the features and things that they've taken away."
"NetApp AFF is a highly expensive solution, and its pricing should be reduced."
"We only had a few upgrade issues."
"The ONTAP S3 implementation is not feature-complete as compared to StorageGRID. We had to move our lakeFS instance from ONTAP S3 based on AFF to StorageGRID."
"You have a limit in terms of how much you can expand storage. It sounds like a lot. However, over the years, as you grow, it may be smaller than you think."
"The product should be more competitive and come up with additional features. They should keep the client always in mind and as the top priority. This would be the best way to compete with other solutions."
"In terms of improvements, they could have a couple more things that are usually done through the command line."
"FC and ATTO bridges are still needed for cross datacenter replication."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"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."
"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"I believe HPE Primera and Pure Storage are similar in price."
"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 quite cost-effective."
"The price to capacity ratio is good."
"The pricing for HDD was good."
"The solution is cost-effective. I rate it an eight out of ten, with ten being excellent."
"The tool is expensive. I can say that HPE Primera is one of the costliest tools in the market."
"Licensing fees are billed on a yearly basis and the cost of GreenLake service is included."
"The price of the upgrading of the solution is high. I could buy a whole unit of All Flash FAS 300 with a shelf for around $285,000. Yet if I want to add one additional shelf, it'll cost me $275,000. So they want you to upgrade by replacing it. It's cheaper to buy a whole new unit than to just scale out. The upside is they last. AFF lasts us three or four years. So that's a good investment."
"Obviously depending on the price point, NetApp is obviously a little more expensive than your generic Dell SAN solution or whatever."
"The price to performance ratio with NetApp is unmatched by any other vendor right now."
"It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion."
"The only area where the product has room for improvement is the cost."
"The pricing is good."
"Using NetApp, our total cost of ownership decreased by 17%."
"I do not deal with pricing, but the pricing of NetApp and Dell seems pretty close. NetApp support is cheaper than Dell support."
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Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 28, 2015
NetApp vs. XtremIO
Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
69%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

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 the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Primera
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.