HPE Primera vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and StarWind are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.9, while StarWind is ranked #31 with an average rating of 8.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 3.1% mindshare in AFS, compared to StarWind’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

StarWind Storage Appliance and HPE Primera are leading contenders in the storage appliance market. Users are happier with the pricing and support of StarWind Storage Appliance, but HPE Primera excels in features, making it a worthy investment.

Features: StarWind Storage Appliance is praised for its ease of use, flexibility, and robust data protection. HPE Primera stands out with its advanced analytics, reliability, and scalability. While both products offer strong features, HPE Primera’s advanced capabilities give it an edge.

Room for Improvement: StarWind users seek better integration options and enhanced performance metrics. HPE Primera users desire simpler management tools and improved customer support. Both products have areas for growth, but the demands vary based on user priorities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind Storage Appliance is often highlighted for its straightforward deployment and responsive support team. HPE Primera, while offering a stable deployment process, faces criticism regarding its complex setup and inconsistent customer service. StarWind’s easier deployment process and reliable support make it a preferable option for immediate usability.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind Storage Appliance is recognized for its cost-effectiveness and swift return on investment. HPE Primera, despite its higher setup costs, is considered worthwhile by users due to its advanced features and long-term benefits. The choice between cost and advanced capabilities depends on the buyer’s budget and long-term goals.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. StarWind Storage Appliance Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

December 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

1.0

Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.

Sentiment score

1.0

Increased productivity, cost-efficiency, scalability, reliability, and simplified management led to higher return on investment and better business operations.

Sentiment score

6.0

StarWind Storage Appliance users saw reduced costs, improved performance, and increased efficiency, with easy scalability and high reliability.

If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Primera report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Storage Appliance report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.1

Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.

Sentiment score

5.1

HPE Primera's customer service is mixed, with praise for support but concerns about delays, inconsistency, and communication.

Sentiment score

9.0

StarWind Storage Appliance customer service is praised for 24x7 troubleshooting, professionalism, high technical support ratings, and helpful videos.

Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Technical support is good at least through vendors, not directly with the principal.

Shakeel Qureshi

Infrastructure Specialis at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

We could not get a genuine explanation for why systems were failing under certain conditions.

reviewer1599129

Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Primera report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Storage Appliance report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.

Sentiment score

4.2

HPE Primera offers scalable storage, easily expands capacity without downtime, and effectively supports medium-sized organizations' growing data needs.

Sentiment score

7.5

StarWind Storage Appliance is scalable, adaptable, hardware-independent, supports unlimited storage, and is effective in standalone and hyperconverged environments.

It hasn't broken down anytime in the last six to seven years, despite hurricanes, earthquakes, and power outages.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Primera report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Storage Appliance report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.

Sentiment score

7.6

HPE Primera offers high stability and reliability with 100% availability, excelling in mission-critical environments despite minor HDD issues.

Sentiment score

8.9

StarWind Storage Appliance is praised for stability, robust performance, and high user ratings, especially on well-maintained Windows OS.

I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.

Gary Cheung

Project Manager at a government with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

The system operates smoothly even with a greater IOPS capacity enabled by using SSD disks.

reviewer1599129

Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Primera report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Storage Appliance report

Room For Improvement

Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.

HPE Primera needs improvement in affordability, usability, integration, support, pricing, reliability, security, training, and user interface.

StarWind Storage Appliance requires improved integration, easier setup, better insights, and feature parity between demo and paid versions.

Storage replication should be essential.

Shakeel Qureshi

Infrastructure Specialis at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

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.

Santhosh Sridhara

Cloud Architect at DXC Technology

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

The user interface is friendly, yet it does not cover all steps that can be performed via direct port connections on storage.

reviewer1599129

Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Primera report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Storage Appliance report

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.

HPE Primera offers cost-effective, flexible pricing for enterprises, balancing cost and value, with configurable and optional feature costs.

StarWind Storage Appliance is praised for its affordability, straightforward licensing, and excellent value compared to competitors for SMEs.

While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.

Enes SUZER

Manager, System Infrastructure & Security at Organik Kimya San. ve Tic. A.S.

The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Primera report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Storage Appliance report

Valuable Features

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.

HPE Primera offers excellent performance, integration, scalability, and AI-driven analytics with all features included for cost-effective reliability.

StarWind Storage Appliance is praised for its user-friendly interface, high performance, reliability, excellent support, affordability, and robust data protection.

Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

It was one of the main requirements to have a FlashArray, and this really has sorted out these issues.

Shakeel Qureshi

Infrastructure Specialis at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed.

Enes SUZER

Manager, System Infrastructure & Security at Organik Kimya San. ve Tic. A.S.

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

We have more capacity than expected, and even if we face issues with one or two disks, the system maintains the same performance.

reviewer1599129

Solution Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Primera report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Storage Appliance report

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 3.1%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Storage Appliance is 0.3%, up from 0.1% 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	3.1%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
StarWind Storage Appliance	0.3%
Other	95.2%

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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Kishore CA

Senior Engineering Assistant at Bharat Electronics Limited

Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes.

The only drawback is that it takes a bit of time during initial synchronization, especially after restarting the environment. This is a potential area of improvement. There's a synchronization time, but it takes time. Initially, when we start the first environment deployment, it starts synchronizing between the storage. So, it is taking time. One thing is that even when you restart. Let's assume that the synchronization is completed and the storage is synchronized. Both storages are fully synchronized, and it is in sync mode. Now, if we want to restart both nodes, there is a case for maintenance purposes. You took both nodes for maintenance, and we rebooted it. Then, it should not synchronize again. It should be a checksum. And if there is a checksum match, there should be no synchronization again. So, one thing that should be taken care of. Another thing is that I used freeware- the community version, free license, which we deployed using PowerShare. In that case, it was very difficult to bring back another node when one node was faulty. Let's assume that both the nodes are working fine. And we found one node faulty. And we destroyed all the volumes in that and tried to bring it back. So that was a difficult factor. The final solution is that we were not able to bring back the failed node. So, we reconstructed a new data source for that. That is another drawback. In future releases, I would like to see the integration with VMware or some other things as a plugin model for VMware.

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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

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

No data available

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	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	2

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Storage Appliance?

I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind Storage Appliance?

StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering StarWind Storage Appliance?

The tool is mostly for medium companies and requires no maintenance. It has a good price and performance. I rate the ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% 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 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 29% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 25% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 6% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Primera Competitors

FreeNAS vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 27% of the time

StoneFly VSO NAS vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 21% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 15% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 14% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Storage Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

More StarWind Storage Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

January 2026

Download HPE Primera product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Storage Appliance

January 2026

Download StarWind Storage Appliance product report

Also Known As

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

Primera

No data available

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

For SMB and Enterprises who are looking for high performance primary storage for server virtualization, VDI, database and Big Data scenarios, or inexpensive secondary backup tier, our solution is StarWind Storage Appliance. It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, and associated software into an easily scalable storage platform.

Additionally, the appliance features an optional gateway to Azure public cloud, which helps to implement an effective Disaster Recovery plan or meet regulatory requirements. StarWind SA scales up by adding individual disks and flash modules, or JBODs, while adding ready controller nodes allows scaling out.

StarWind SA targets those, who need high-performance primary storage or secondary storage for backup. In case there is a whole virtualization infrastructure to build from scratch, StarWind HCA will come in handy. Otherwise, if all the required hardware is present, StarWind Virtual SAN will be enough to build a high-performance virtualization setup.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. StarWind Storage Appliance

December 2025

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