HPE Primera vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0, while NetApp is ranked #27 with an average rating of 9.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 4.0% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and HPE Primera are both leading storage solutions. HPE Primera leads due to its superior feature set and proactive customer service.

Features: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays offer high performance, low latency, and cost-effectiveness. HPE Primera includes AI-driven operations, all-flash, tier-1 storage, and advanced scalability.

Room for Improvement: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays need better integration with third-party applications, enhanced data protection, and more intuitive management. HPE Primera requires improved backup solutions, a more user-friendly management system, and faster data migration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are known for straightforward deployment and responsive support. HPE Primera is praised for easy deployment, proactive customer service, and robust technical support.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays have competitive pricing and strong ROI. HPE Primera has a higher initial cost but offers significant ROI due to its advanced features and reliability.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

June 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 June 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 4.0%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

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.

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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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Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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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 has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"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."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The initial setup is simple."

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

"The product has better replication features than the previous products."

"One of the most valuable features is the ease of deployment."

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

"It is a stable and scalable solution with quick and efficient storage capability."

"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."

"HPE Primera is stable."

More HPE Primera pros

"The management software is very good."

"The main advantage of this solution is performance."

"The replication and mirroring features are very good."

"The benefits are better up-time, better response time."

"The stability, speed, and reliability are the solution's best features. The information is also very secure."

"The product's initial setup phase can be managed easily and completed in 20 to 30 minutes. It is one of the fastest storage tools that you can implement."

"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."

"We do a lot of in-house, application-dependent type things, where we find the different niches to the different things. Certain things they do better. We've found that it actually does very well on some of our higher-end applications."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

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

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"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."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"When we asked for HPE support to resolve issues, their help was punctual and on time. However, the depth of root cause analysis provided was not satisfying."

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

"On the hardware side, you should have the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers."

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

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

"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."

"The pricing is very high."

"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."

More HPE Primera cons

"As far as the manageability, being able to port between the two and have to do less training in-house from a customer point of view, that would be the part to improve."

"Better integration with other brands is important so we would like to see it easier to integrate."

"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."

"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"Things like the FlexClones, SnapVault, SnapMirror, all of that. Some of it's available on the EF series, but we like what we have in the FAS system."

"I’d like to see bigger, faster, better hardware, of course. I think that is the way the hardware is trending anyway; bigger, faster CPU, better software, fewer bugs, all that stuff. T"

"The only major drawback is the replication between EF-Series units."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

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

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

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

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

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

"HPE Primera service is cost-effective."

"The pricing for HDD was good."

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

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."

"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."

"he price point that we're getting is very competitive in the market. Since we are buying in such a large quantity, they gave us a huge discount."

"It's a lot cheaper than what the other vendors have for the same type of environment. It saves us money."

"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."

"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."

"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."

"The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

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 ...

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 37% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 19% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs HPE Primera

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 31% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 17% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 14% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 12% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

May 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

June 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

May 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

Primera

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

June 2025

Free Report: HPE Primera vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

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