HPE Primera vs Pure Storage FlashArray comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HPE Primera and Pure Storage FlashArray based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. Pure Storage FlashArray Report (Updated: September 2023).
734,678 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The solution is very straightforward to set up.""It has good, reliable, fast storage.""The solution is scalable.""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.""FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle.""Technical support has been helpful and responsive.""The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone.""Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pros →

"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.""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 high availability was most valuable because they come with what's called 100% data availability. With special terms, they license and guarantee 100% data availability. That was probably one of the key features or components that HPE was offering with that model.""HPE provides good support through their customer service.""The interface is simplified.""HPE Primera is scalable.""HPE Primera is stable.""It is stable and reliable."

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"The most valuable feature is replication.""On a scale of one to ten, where ten is the most comfortable pricing, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.""The speed is one of the most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray.""Simplicity and reliability are the most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray.""The code upgrades are very smooth.""The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is its high stability level.""We've been using FlashArray's snapshot for backups. Their replication across sites and response time are also excellent.""I like the speed, and I like the API and how programmable it is."

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Cons
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe.""They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage.""We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI.""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.""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.""It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking.""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.""Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

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"We used to receive hardware errors a lot of times. The ambient temperatures rise rate was approximately 35 to 55 degrees, but when it was approximately 27 or 28, we used to get errors a lot.""There are certain features that require engineering-level access, which should be accessible to storage admins as well.""The solution has good performance but it could improve further.""The initial setup is not straightforward.""Only HPE can manage the product.""HPE Primera's pricing model is an area of concern and can be considered for improvement.""The solution could prove the reporting.""Primera should be more user-friendly."

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"The price could be better.""Its price could be cheaper. It is not the cheapest one out there, but I'm not directly involved in the figures and negotiations.""The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could be better.""It was not proactive communication.""The price should be lower.""It would be good to have metrics of the box's performance so we can see what it delivers, but currently, I can't see what it's actually doing.""When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller.""We would like to be able to connect to data tape for backup, specifically to the LTO backups."

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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."
  • "The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
  • "Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
  • More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."
  • "HPE Primera service is cost-effective."
  • "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."
  • "The license for HPE Primera is all-inclusive."
  • "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."
  • "The product is expensive."
  • More HPE Primera Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "When we bought the unit, we bought per capacity. So, the licensing is per capacity, and the only thing that we have to buy every year or every three years is maintenance. Included in that maintenance is the upgrade of the controllers every three years at no cost to us."
  • "We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."
  • "There are no fees for licensing. The hardware is paid for only once."
  • "I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
  • "You can pay extra for Evergreen support, which gives you free upgrades when new features are introduced."
  • "The best features come included without any additional cost."
  • "We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
  • "The price of the solution is not expensive."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues.
    Top Answer:Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products.
    Top Answer:We need to get more information about the performance fine-tuning that we are doing. Many options to check performance… more »
    Top Answer:HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. The… more »
    Top Answer:HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspective… more »
    Top Answer:The product has better replication features than the previous products.
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:Data deduplication is one feature I found to be the most valuable in the tool...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a… more »
    Top Answer:FlashArray is a premium solution, having all-inclusive licensing including future functionalities, and being end/to/end… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
    Primera
    Learn More
    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.

    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

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    Offer
    Learn more about Pure FlashArray X NVMe
    Learn more about HPE Primera
    Learn more about Pure Storage FlashArray
    Sample Customers
    Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
    Information Not Available
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Comms Service Provider18%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm31%
    Computer Software Company19%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Government13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization34%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization37%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise36%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise61%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise36%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise43%
    Large Enterprise39%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business16%
    Midsize Enterprise44%
    Large Enterprise40%
    Buyer's Guide
    HPE Primera vs. Pure Storage FlashArray
    September 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. Pure Storage FlashArray and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
    734,678 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HPE Primera is ranked 9th in All-Flash Storage with 19 reviews while Pure Storage FlashArray is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 39 reviews. HPE Primera is rated 8.2, while Pure Storage FlashArray is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of HPE Primera writes "A rock-solid, enterprise-class product that provides 100% availability and is backed by an excellent company". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Pure Storage FlashArray writes "User-friendly, fast performance, good data compression and deduplication capabilities". HPE Primera is most compared with HPE 3PAR StoreServ, HPE Nimble Storage, Dell PowerStore, IBM FlashSystem and NetApp AFF, whereas Pure Storage FlashArray is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and VAST Data. See our HPE Primera vs. Pure Storage FlashArray report.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.