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HPE Primera vs NetApp AFF A-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
232
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Primera
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF A-Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.6%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 1.6%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF A-Series is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.6%
NetApp AFF A-Series0.9%
HPE Primera1.6%
Other90.9%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
MR
Storage Architect at DXC Technology
Improved data compression has maximized storage capacity and simplifies daily operations
In terms of advantages, I don't see any improvements needed; however, when comparing HPE Primera with Hitachi and KvSP Harrison, it's not on the enterprise level, but we can go ahead with mid-level to enterprise cloud solutions. I don't have any specific ideas for additional features for HPE Primera in the next release; currently, all the features seem good, and I don't see any missing functionalities. I believe architecture could be scaled up to rate controllers, but I don't have any specific suggestions for improvements. Stability could be improved because maintenance-wise, issues with the controllers can sometimes be challenging; enhancements in high availability architecture could help.
Raymond Ciscon - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at MacLean-Fogg Company
Gives us the foundation to grow efficiently
We're a manufacturer. All of our ERP software is dependent upon fast performance and connection to this hardware. So when there was an issue years ago when something was wrong or slow, that prompted us to say, "Can we check storage? Can we check the network?" Ever since we've gone up to all-flash FAS systems, there's never any questions about performance when it comes to storage. There's been a huge leap from spinning disks to SSDs. I'm hoping with the next update, we'll go to NVMe and we'll have similar experiences. Last year, we refreshed the SAN at our headquarters. We signed a Keystone agreement with the ability to pay for storage as a service at an excellent price point yet still have the hardware on-prem. I manage the hardware, and, for me, it's the best of both worlds. We've just come up with a situation where, finally, after some time, we're going to need to buy some additional storage. In previous situations like this, it usually meant the purchase of an additional shelf at a large price. Now we have Keystone, and we're locked in at that price per tebibyte. We just have to say that we want to add 25 tebibytes and they take care of it. It's worked out really well. We work ISO 27001 certified. Since I manage the enterprise storage, we use SnapMirror, and we're currently using Veeam for backups. Thanks to what this tool provides, we are able to get through that portion of our certification without a problem. No changes, no rectifying. It's very slick. Our company's goals include maintaining a level of consistency. We're never going to be on the bleeding edge. We're never going to have the super fastest abilities. We want something that works, is easier for us to manage, and has a better growth path. For us, in the past, in the need for additional disk space, if we didn't do the sizing right in the first place, buying additional disks was incredibly expensive. Now, with Keystone, that's no longer an issue, and that's what we like.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We like the speed. It's very low latency. In virtualization, you can mask lots of problems, and even in code you can mask lots of problems, with low latency. It's just pure speed and low latency."
"It worked flawlessly."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"We experience fast demos and zero downtime; we do not experience any downtime with Pure Storage, thanks to resilience with Safe Mode, integration with backup software, and everything related to cyber resilience."
"It has improved the way our organization functions by improving the resilience of our infrastructure by quite a bit."
"You can even review the devices from your phone. You don't need to be connected to your company's website or VPN to access alerts and reports. While you can't manage the devices using your phone, you can review all the important details about the machine."
"I cannot imagine my workflow without Everpure FlashArray because I do not have any other type of storage in use."
"The benefits were realized right away. Between the flash array and the compression, you can really see how good it is. Our databases run a lot better now."
"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."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It serves as the primary storage in my production environment."
"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 is quite a stable storage system that provides good provisioning and allows for the changing of partition sizes."
"There has been a lot of changes in HPE Primera OS, and most of the time any package related to it is simple to upgrade. It does not require any support for the operation. The customer can easily deploy any code directly from the GUI which is very good. Additionally, we have individual storage we can allocate and easily manage."
"HPE Primera is great for rendering purposes and image processing."
"The initial setup is simple."
"NetApp helps us get the fastest output."
"MetroCluster is the best product on the market. It synchronizes the storage. NetApp's update packages are a huge advantage because the firmware and server updates are in one package."
"NetApp AFF A-Series is faster and more robust compared to the all-flash storage of NetApp."
"NetApp's hot and cold storage are its most valuable features. We currently use the A series. Immutable snapshots are another advanced security feature that is positive."
"The deduplication and compression options from NetApp AFF A-Series are good to use for efficient storage capacity."
"NetApp's inline deduplication and compression are unmatched compared to other vendors."
"We've reduced downtime. Without all of NetApp's benefits, we would have had to reconfigure parts of storage that would have required downtime. We have dramatically reduced our downtime through successive generations of NetApp, allowing us to get Five 9s availability."
"NetApp support is fantastic."
 

Cons

"There is not a great need for improvement, but better pricing could be beneficial."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters. This would make things easier."
"It took us a year to get it to stabilize and to get the best out of Pure."
"They can also include file services such as NAS shares and CIFS shares. There should be provisioning of the file shares from a unified array."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"As long as they always improve on IOPS speed, that's all we're really looking for. The faster the storage can be the more we can do speed of application and speed of use."
"It can go down from time to time, but it's been pretty solid so far."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"HPE Primera's deduplication area is not as good as the one offered by Dell PowerStore, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The solution could improve by having seamless migration from other storage systems. The process should be made easier."
"Their support is fine although it can be slow."
"This solution would be expensive for small business and it could be priced more competitively for that market."
"The pricing is very high."
"We face challenges with false alarms, particularly daily alerts related to replication link breaks. I'm not happy with the customer service and support."
"Primera should be more user-friendly."
"The product’s price needs improvement."
"We have several problems with the limitations of NetApp systems in terms of volume shares. We have a brick in a 700 or a controller, and we sometimes make small volumes, but Kubernetes container volumes don't allow us."
"Regarding tech support for NetApp, once the engineer understands our problem, they provide solutions that suit our environment; however, it is essential for the engineer to understand that our environment may differ from standard setups, which can sometimes cause discrepancies in recommendations."
"The solution's ransomware protection could be improved."
"NetApp is shifting to the cloud and adopting AI, but it is not improving its core technology to deliver faster storage. We're still waiting to see if it improves speed with solutions like the 90 series."
"I really don't have a lot of complaints. In the past, there were issues, however, they've really done a great job of reaching out."
"It would be helpful if our partner organized a yearly session with my team to discuss the new feature sets on our current solutions and other ways NetApp can help us. Perhaps we are missing some information to help us make the right decision."
"Pricing could always be lower."
"NetApp AFF A-Series should work on cost. The solutions, especially enterprise-level storage, should be more affordable to improve their appeal to businesses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."
"For us, as the customer, it reduced the price of the management."
"Our licensing is on a yearly basis. So, every year, we renew. We could do a three-year contract, but right now, we only do a one-year."
"Pure came in at a better price point than EMC and performed better than Compellent."
"We have seen a reduction in TCO."
"My organization has a yearly license, but I believe that Pure Storage FlashArray has capacity-based licenses as well. I'm definitely happy with the pricing."
"We have seen a reduction in the TCO, because Pure Storage is partnering with Belfrics. This partnership reduces our latency and space."
"Price is about the only thing that's wrong with it. A little bit better pricing would be great."
"The cost is $75,000 for a three-year contract."
"The license for HPE Primera is all-inclusive."
"The price to capacity ratio is good."
"The price of this solution is good for medium-sized and large businesses."
"The price of the solution should be cheaper."
"HPE Primera is less expensive than HPE Alletra."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise160
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Primera?
Regarding pricing, HPE Primera is moderate; it's neither cheap nor costly, but it's a reliable solution with reasonab...
What needs improvement with NetApp AFF A-Series?
NetApp is doing great with cloud integration; however, there may be room for improvement in integrating with existing...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp AFF A-Series?
It would be great to see some automation from NetApp. I rate NetApp AFF A-Series a nine out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp AFF A-Series?
With respect to pricing, NetApp can be competitive but hasn't been explored to a large extent.
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Primera
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. NetApp AFF A-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.