We performed a comparison between HPE Nimble Storage and NetApp AFF 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."It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"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."
"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."
"Even through upgrades, there is no downtime, not even a hiccup for users."
"The most useful features are high availability and the storage snapshot backup functionality."
"Performance, reliability, InfoSight, the ability to upgrade the O/S on the SAN without taking it down, and cost."
"Its speed, ease of use, and it has been completely reliable."
"The solution runs pretty fast."
"We have seen our average latency go from four milliseconds to point four. Therefore, we are getting 10 times better performance down to the end user on everything. We have seen an increase in our IOPS by ten times."
"Our upgrades are seamless. Whether we're adding storage, or upgrading the software, we don't take an outage for those upgrades."
"I really like the form factor, which is nice and compact and small."
"I would say the consistency with the ONTAP versions and the speed and performance from the flash."
"I like the ability to snapshot, and the cloning features are valuable to us as well. I like that I can quickly and efficiently snapshot the data and move it to wherever I need to locally or in the cloud. Also, I know that when I take the snapshot that all of the data will be there and that it will be usable when I need to use it."
"The overall latency in our environment is very low because it's All Flash and we've got 10 Giga dedicated to the storage network"
"We reduced our floor space by reducing 44 racks units to four rack units. It has helped us with our data center economies of scale. It reduces our support costs too, which is great."
"It also helps to accelerate databases in our environment. First of all, there is the reliability of things staying online and the small response time as well, from the MetroCluster, for all of the data that we're serving; and the applications are talking to the MetroCluster. It provides a very fast response time."
"NetApp is like a one-point central management. For example, one can put everything on the right version and control the whole environment from one software solution."
"The most valuable feature of NetApp AFF is the reputation of the company."
"My favorite part is all-flash solid drives. All of my applications are running on an all-flash array. Before, we used to get too many severity tickets on performance, but as soon as we migrated everything to an all-flash array, our critical applications are at top performance."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"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."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"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."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"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."
"The software layer has to improve."
"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."
"The only thing that I can really compare Nimble to is all-flash because, right now, Nimble is a hybrid solution. I would like to see them come out with an all-flash alternative."
"The most difficult part about Nimble was the fact that it didn't have a standard length."
"I don't think it is officially released yet, but the main reason that we chose Nimble is because of the sync rep feature. So, I would like to see that further evolve. This feature will be essential for our setups."
"I would like to see more integrations."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"Scalability, in terms of being able to scale out, is not easy and should be improved."
"HPE does not have suffficient storage."
"We want to start storing data in the cloud really soon and we are looking at options."
"In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that."
"We currently use some thin provisioning for our planning system, but we will probably move away from thin provisioning because our Solaris planning system actually has some issues with the thin provisioning and way Solaris handles it, since Solaris uses a ZFS file system. The ZFS file system doesn't like the thin provisioning changing things and it brings systems down, which is bad."
"The admin tools and the integration with other products and clouds can be improved. It should also be easier to identify and troubleshoot problems in this solution. It takes a long time, and it should be improved."
"I would like to see NetApp improve more of its offline tools and utilities."
"It's a little behind on security. It's starting to get into multi-factor authentication, they just started to introduce it but not for all products."
"Better stability, not releasing features until they are fully functional, or at least giving us a software train that doesn't add them until they are fully functional and proven."
"During the initial setup, you need to know what you are doing."
"NetApp should offer more training so everyone can learn about the products. Other vendors have a lot of training options. It would be great if NetApp would highlight how to use the features more so that every admin or person can gain more knowledge about this technology."
HPE Nimble Storage is ranked 5th in All-Flash Storage with 119 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 281 reviews. HPE Nimble Storage is rated 9.0, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of HPE Nimble Storage writes "Beneficial management software, straightforward installation, and good support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". HPE Nimble Storage is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell PowerStore, HPE Primera and HPE 3PAR StoreServ, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Pure Storage FlashArray and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform. See our HPE Nimble Storage vs. NetApp AFF report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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