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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    HPE Nimble Storage

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/ANimble Storage was acquired by HPE in 2017. The enterprise flash array product line now goes by the name HPE Nimble Storage.N/A

    HPE SimpliVity

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AHPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution. HPE acquired SimpliVity for its Omnicube line of products in January 2017.N/A

    VMware vSAN

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AVMware vSAN is an enterprise-class storage virtualization software that provides a simple path to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and multi cloud. VMware vSAN is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.N/A
    Pricing
    HPE Nimble StorageHPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    HPE Nimble StorageHPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    HPE Nimble StorageHPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
    Considered Multiple Products
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answer on this topic
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answer on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Chose VMware vSAN
    We used HPE SimpliVity in the past. HPE SimpliVity provided a similar functionality, but it required a virtual controller VM on each host which consumed CPU, RAM, and Storage. Upgrades and maintenance on the HPE SimpliVity nodes was more difficult because the controller VMs …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSAN
    Upgrades and maintenance are little difficult in other solutions available. Also, VMware vSAN offers a vast range of features optimizing the CPU and memory to great extent resulting in faster performance . Performance is enhanced with VMware vSAN and support of vSAN is also …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSAN
    I came from environments where we used hosts and a san. The Sans are always very expensive and to add additional resources to the san it's in large amounts. Most of the environments only had a couple of hosts so downtime or outages were always a concern. Being able to spread …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSAN
    VMware vSAN is the only hyper-convergence product we have used, but it replaced multiple dedicated Nimble storage arrays. Nimble had a vCenter plugin which made it much easier to use, but VMware vSAN is baked right into the vCenter. vSAN also really doesn't require much if …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSAN
    vSAN is far more integrated than any other SDS solution running on vSphere. It is also a simpler deployment and management model.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    14 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Features
    HPE Nimble StorageHPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
    Enterprise Flash Array Storage
    Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of HPE Nimble Storage and HPE SimpliVity and VMware vSAN
    Feature
    HPE Nimble Storage
    8.7
    12 Ratings
    2% below category average
    HPE SimpliVity
    -
    Ratings
    VMware vSAN
    -
    Ratings
    Flash Array Performance8.011 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flash Array Integration10.010 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Compression10.011 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Non-Intrusive Upgrades10.012 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Simplicity9.012 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Power Savings5.011 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    HPE Nimble StorageHPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    StarWind HCA
    Score8.6 out of 10
    StarWind HCA
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell Compellent (discontinued)
    Score8 out of 10
    StarWind HCA
    Score8.6 out of 10
    StarWind HCA
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Everpure FlashArray
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Score9 out of 10
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    HPE Nimble StorageHPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (28 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (5 ratings)
    5.5
    (2 ratings)
    7.5
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    HPE Nimble StorageHPE SimpliVityVMware vSAN
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    HPE Nimble Hybrid storage is very cost effective that can provide the same Latency, I/O and Bandwidth compared with any other All FLASH storage which is 3 times expensive than this. From a feature comparison standpoint of view, there isn't much difference between Hybrid Vs ALL Flash. HPE Nimble Storage uses ALL Flash disk at the front end to process the data thus by reducing the cost by using a regular SAS disk at the back end. Its the software and the algorithm that HPE Nimble StorageE uses to achieve this. having said that, the overall data reduction, de-duplication and compression is above the mark as what the sales team promised initially. Overall, the storage is performing well without any challenges.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    I only know what I know...which is my IT world. Having two datacenters that were physical servers attached to a SAN that "attempted" to replicate and then migrating. For a SMB small IT shop that happens to have two datacenters already in place...this has been ideal. I can have a generalist maintain the system and we have a private cloud for DR with hardly any effort...the biggest gain by far!
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    The product is a must for enterprise & SMB segments as this gives a good value for money and the licensing policy is very well defined and cost effective for the feature set it provides. This is very well suited for organization which have multiple brand storage systems and would like to consolidate them all together, thus providing a huge storage capacity for the organizations data growth. The product becomes less appropriate in organization where they have single storage platform as the service provider would have the ability to consilidate all the storage systems. Hence this products may be under utilized.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • HP Nimble is basically an all in one SAN with SSD cache or in some cases fully SSD based however the thing it does the best is its front end GUI and user management capability making it easy for anyone to ramp up on managing it quickly.
    • The Nimble SAN is also very easily managed when it comes to hardware management. Outside of some major internal parts such as the mainboard, almost everything in the system is duplicated so single failures never bring the system down. Power supplies and drives are easily swapped out.
    • Nimble has incredibly capable and easily accessible support that is available 24/7.
    • The price point on Nimble, though higher than piecing together a home made SAN out of spare Windows Servers, is perfect even for some SMB's.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • Deduplication and Compression - SimpliVity keeps the space consumption to a minimum. We currently have 60 servers running virtually and we still have room to grow. This really helps with the backups as we can have longer retention.
    • Backups - Ability to keep backups for longer and to create multiple backup policies for a VM is a breeze. You can have a backup policy for each datastore as well as a separate backup policy for the same VM.
    • Creating Datastores is very easy. No more messing around with LUNS and iSCSI. Just go to the SimpliVity tab and select create datastore and it's done. You can also increase the datastore on the fly as well as have a datastore bigger than 2TB.
    • File level recovery is included as well. The whole backup process in SimpliVity can help you do away with other software.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMware runs VSAN certification programs to make sure the OEM sells validated nodes. It helps customers to select appropriate certified ready nodes like Lenovo ThinkAgile VX which comes factory configured and easy to set up.
    • Hyperconverged solutions reduce real estate space and networking costs when compare with shared storage. The host overhead also less.
    • Supports All-Flash (SATA and NVMe SSDs) and Hybrid vSAN with HDD and SSD. So customers can choose cost-effective solutions appropriate to their workloads.
    • Supports different storage policies, RAID and duplication, and compression features and it makes a complete storage solution.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • I'd like the GUI to include more information for some of the features such as replication data totals each night. You have to go to the command line for this.
    • It would be nice to have a feature built into the GUI that would show you the command line equivalent to get the same results you are seeing in the GUI.
    • Although the intial setup was easy, they could always improve on that portion. During my setup, I did have to do a lot of back and forth with research on their site as to what each setting was that I was setting up. They could have provided some sort of description for each field within the setup that would have made it easier to know what they were having us set up.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • UI can be less than intuitive at times
    • reporting on the actual amount of space utilised can be misleading
    • Upgrading to additional storage if not specc'd correctly can be very expensive.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • We were a fairly early adopter of VMware vSAN and as such experienced several growing pains.
    • We experienced a few bugs that took a few software versions upgrades to go mostly away.
    • The biggest issue we had overall was with host drivers. Even with vSAN ready node compatible hosts, you have to be very careful that the drivers for NIC and RAID controllers are right.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    Nimble is doing its job well and any issues that do come up cause the Nimble support team to alert us before we would potentially see an impact to our production environment. I do wish we could expand into the unused space in the CS210 shelf which is limited by what I assume is a marketing/sales strategy, but we will likely add shelves moving forward.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    Almost perfect, some hoops to jump through after major upgrade, but overall simple and effective. Our storage administrator really likes the integration with vmware as it makes his life easier. Also it was no trouble integrating it with our active directory credentials. The only issue we had was getting the plugin in VMWare going initially.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    It sits nicely ontop of VMWare and is easy enough to use. Some improvements to the UI could be done, such as placing buttons where it is expected to have them not in unusual places, so you have to hunt for them. The backup and restore is intuitive and makes things super easy if you need to do a quick rollback. Space savings on multiple VMs and backups means we are backing up more than we need which gives us confidence in what we do. Updating the system is also fairly easy and their support has always been fantastic. They will contact us if they detect any issues, usually before we notice them!
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    Deploying and configuring VSAN is a relatively simple process for people that are already used to working in virtual environments, primarily for those that are familiar with vSphere. The compatibility of those two products is amazing. You shouldn't really encounter any issues and if you do, you surely did something wrong.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    Any time I have had to contact support, they have always been quick to respond, and very efficient in resolving any issues. When an action has been required on our side for a fix, they have been very helpful in explaining step by step what was required, and when replacement parts have been needed, we've had them within 24 hours.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    Support is very good. With proactive support, you are supported by an engineer in North America who answers the phone and immediately begins assisting with your issue. The folks I have dealt with in the last several years have been very skilled and it is rare to have a ticket open for more than a day or two. Issues affecting production are dealt with appropriately and are escalated within the support organization.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    Support is (as always forVMware) top notch and easy to work with. The majority of computer companies are outsourcing their tech staff, and it seems they do as well. But their guys know the product well and are quick to respond to your ticket (if the severity is right!).
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    We used a Dell EqualLogic PS Series storage array for many years and it worked well. A big issue was that upgrading firmware required system downtime and during one upgrade I was unable to bring the systems back up afterwards. I spent several days on the phone over a holiday weekend with Dell and VMware support in order to get my systems back up and running. It made me very nervous about doing firmware upgrades after that.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    We have decided to sign with Nutanix. We feel they are improving technology and are just a better software now.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    Our VMware solution is built in-house for the organization's private application, we don't want to put our data on cloud premises. Also, vSAN is a cost-effective solution for our environment. We have done the POC with both products to understand the Flexibility, Management, and cost. After the successful POC, we have chosen the VMware vSAN.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • 100% uptime 4 years and counting in a 24/7 environment.
    • Long hardware support lifecycle, with extremely affordable maintenance renewal plans that provide real value.
    • Nimble has been the most cost-effective SAN solution I have ever deployed.
    • The inital costs, ongoing maintenance, and administration requirements were all 50% less than EMC and NetApp.
    Incentivized
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    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
    • HPE SimpliVity provided us with the ability to replace our existing infrastructure with a solution that provided better backup and recovery, and an off-site DR solution, at a lower price point than other solutions.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • we have realized savings in the licensing compared to traditional storage (over $500,000 over the last 5 years)
    • we have realized ROI through efficiencies in our staff of approx $1MM (over the last 5 years)
    • also, positive impact on the time to value/speed of implementation allowed us to realize business objectives (Over $1MM of ROI)
    Incentivized
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