HPE Nimble Storage vs. IBM Storage FlashSystem

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HPE Nimble Storage
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Nimble Storage was acquired by HPE in 2017. The enterprise flash array product line now goes by the name HPE Nimble Storage.N/A
IBM Storage FlashSystem
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
IBM Storage FlashSystem, an all-flash storage array, delivers ~2 PB of effective capacity per single rack unit. Engineered with unique FlashCore Modules, it offloads data services including compression, encryption, deduplication, and ransomware threat detection ensuring optimum performance and resiliency.N/A
Pricing
HPE Nimble StorageIBM Storage FlashSystem
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HPE Nimble StorageIBM Storage FlashSystem
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsEntry-Level IBM Storage FlashSystem: For any organization looking for an all-flash array with features that are both enterprise conducive and budget friendly, the small to entry level offering prices from IBM begin at $18,400. Mid-Range IBM Storage FlashSystem: For businesses wanting to take advantage of an enterprise-quality flash array for critical workloads (such as SQL databases, SAP, ERP, CRM, etc.), list prices start at $104,600. High-Performance IBM Storage FlashSystem: Organizations seeking a storage array with the ability to run multiple instances of critical applications that are both performance intensive and capacity sensitive, can find IBM prices starting at $368,500. Contact IBM for configuration and pricing details.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HPE Nimble StorageIBM Storage FlashSystem
Considered Both Products
HPE Nimble Storage

No answer on this topic

IBM Storage FlashSystem
Chose IBM Storage FlashSystem
IBM Flash systems spectrum virtualize stands up against the software. Its data reduction algorithms are more efficient and reliable than hoped. Also, its replication capabilities are easier to manage, configure, and understand from an administrator's point of view. Also, IBM's …
Chose IBM Storage FlashSystem
1. Cost effective and flexibility in choosing among wide range of portfolios
2. Better virtualisation capabilities with hybrid model and on-prem setup
3. Cloud management tools and softwares to manage easily.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
HPE Nimble StorageIBM Storage FlashSystem
Enterprise Flash Array Storage
Comparison of Enterprise Flash Array Storage features of Product A and Product B
HPE Nimble Storage
9.5
11 Ratings
4% above category average
IBM Storage FlashSystem
8.5
116 Ratings
7% below category average
Flash Array Performance9.610 Ratings9.2113 Ratings
Flash Array Integration9.79 Ratings8.5114 Ratings
Data Compression9.610 Ratings8.4112 Ratings
Non-Intrusive Upgrades9.811 Ratings8.4108 Ratings
Simplicity9.611 Ratings8.5115 Ratings
Power Savings9.010 Ratings8.3111 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HPE Nimble StorageIBM Storage FlashSystem
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 9.5 out of 10
Pure Storage FlashArray
Pure Storage FlashArray
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Dell VMAX
Dell VMAX
Score 9.7 out of 10
Dell VMAX
Dell VMAX
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HPE Nimble StorageIBM Storage FlashSystem
Likelihood to Recommend
9.4
(27 ratings)
8.8
(127 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.4
(4 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(17 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(17 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(5 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
HPE Nimble StorageIBM Storage FlashSystem
Likelihood to Recommend
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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.
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IBM
Flash storage is an ideal solution for environments demanding high input/output operations (I/O) and frequent read/write cycles. We successfully deploy this technology for a client's high-performance backup infrastructure, where it serves as the backend storage for multi-stream data writes, connected via a 100Gb network interface. There is also a Tiered based approach.
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Pros
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • 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.
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IBM
  • Cyber resilience with the new functionality of immutable copies called sfaguarded copies
  • With the IBM FlashCore modules it allows us to have good levels of online compression of the information, besides that it is a hardware compression that would not affect the performance of the equipment
  • the virtualization of other storages that can be IBM or other brands
  • binary replication works great
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Cons
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • 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.
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IBM
  • Drive firmware updates are a bit clunky, the update files have to be sourced manually
  • IBM has separate storage monitoring you need to set up to get good historical statistics.
  • If you need 8 16Gb ports you will not be able to expand with a SAS connector.
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Likelihood to Renew
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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.
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IBM
As flash technology evolves rapidly, vendors should [adapt] to the changes and onboard them in their products. IBM is a bit slow in adopting advanced technology in [its] portfolio. Even though the current product is good, my decision is purely based on how the transformation of the product [is] being produced and supplied to [the] end-user.
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Usability
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
No answers on this topic
IBM
I think Flashsystem has excellent usability. It is compatible with almost every platform we have at our enterprise. It is compatible with Power HA and VMware SRM. It has very well-suited interfaces, and spectrum virtualization is very easy to use. GUI and CLI are very well done.
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Reliability and Availability
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
No answers on this topic
IBM
we usually have never had problems with the storage going down, ofcourse there have been disk failures as part of redundancy it works well and didnt have problems with unavailablity.
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Performance
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
No answers on this topic
IBM
We used aged file servers before, so boy did we noticed a speed increase when we switched over. We think this system helps you shape your data and integrate it in any development plans you may have. We found it very simplistic to justify with our finance team/CEO as it ticked all of our requirements
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Support Rating
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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.
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IBM
Sometimes the knowledge of the support agent is quite limited and the support always has to route through the level 1 agent to screen all the informtion provided. Then its esclated to the next level support with the all collected data . The logs are always uploaded along wiht the case but still its reviewed at the lower level and then escalated / handed over to the next level if its complex issue to solve.
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Online Training
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
No answers on this topic
IBM
THe training is often selfpaced and easy to follow if you have worked previously with other storage products. The content is clear and contains all the information needed for an admin to learn. However the troubleshooting part is not always included and this is dependent on forums or other sources where the information is not accessible very easily.
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Implementation Rating
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
No answers on this topic
IBM
I was amazed by the way IBM Flash storage provides a huge amount of storage within the limited footprint, it helped us to replace big fat storage arrays, which aided in the process of moving towards lower hardware, carbon, and energy consumption footprint. We can comfortably say that Flash helped us to host applications fast with a blazing speed and user transactions are quite quick.
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Alternatives Considered
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
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.
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IBM
For the past six months, we have been utilizing this technology in our projects to manage a massive workload and produce swift business outcomes on a crucial production database. The IBM FlashSystem 7200, which offers high performance and compression, has so far been a great experience for us. The results and functionality of this product have delighted our consumers.
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Scalability
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
No answers on this topic
IBM
We have been able to scale this storage system whenever there has been requirement for additional capacity and performance. with the help of deduplication we have been able to build quite a robust environment.
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Return on Investment
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • 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.
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IBM
  • Flash System 5000 Built on a software foundation that delivers a 359% ROI.
  • IBM Flash System 5000 Gain the highest levels of availability to support mission-critical applications.
  • IBM Flash System 5000 benefits from [the] integration of modern data protection and rich cyber resiliency features.
  • IBM Flash System 5000 Enhance storage efficiency.
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ScreenShots

IBM Storage FlashSystem Screenshots

Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5300Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 9500Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 7300Screenshot of IBM FlashSystem 5000