Dell Unity XT vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series comparison

Dell Technologies and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.6, while Lenovo is ranked #22 with an average rating of 10.0. Dell Technologies holds a 5.9% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell Unity XT and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are two competing storage solutions. Dell Unity XT is preferred for its robust software capabilities, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is appreciated for its hardware reliability and scalable performance.

Features: Dell Unity XT users value its comprehensive data management features, strong integration with cloud services, and robust software functionalities. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is praised for its high throughput, effective data protection mechanisms, and scalable performance.

Room for Improvement: Dell Unity XT users suggest improvements in hardware upgrade processes, need for faster support responses, and better hardware reliability. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series feedback indicates a demand for more intuitive monitoring tools, better documentation, and improved user guidance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell Unity XT is highlighted for its relatively straightforward deployment, but has mixed reviews regarding customer service efficiency. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is recognized for quick and flexible deployment options, receiving positive feedback for responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Dell Unity XT is perceived as costly, but users believe it offers good long-term ROI due to its comprehensive feature set. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is favored for its competitive pricing and immediate performance benefits, delivering a quicker ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

February 2026

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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:

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Unity XT is 5.9%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 1.8%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Dell Unity XT	5.9%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.6%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series	1.8%
Other	90.7%

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.

Read full review

Deepak Kannan

Sales Account Manager - BFSI Sector at Frontier Business systems

Customer needs are addressed effectively with collaborative sales and service support

Recently, customers have been asking for a cloud tiering option in storages. Some Dell storages do not have cloud tiering, which is an optional commercial feature. NetApp's FSA model 2750 comes with an inbuilt cloud tiering option. In the future, if Dell storages include this option, especially for Unity, it would help us target SME or medium enterprises for quicker closures and support the sales team.

Read full review

Giorgio Pozzi

System Administrator at PORTGUARDIAN.COM SRL

Performance and cost-effectiveness are maximized with seamless setup and significant ROI

I use Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series to replace the old storage in our infrastructure. Additionally, I use it in customer infrastructures to migrate from the old storage to the new one On the M storage, I find the best features to be deduplication and compression. On the DE storage, the most…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"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."

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

More Everpure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It has the same operating system for both file and block, and it actually simplifies everything. And it's much smaller compared to VNX."

"The most valuable feature is the performance. It's still an all-flash array at a good price point."

"Scheduled components are sourced from Korea based on their quality selection, with the actual purchase taking place in Vietnam. The notable features include cache memories and MOS feeder in Dell Unity. Additionally, the storage dynamics are managed uniformly on a global scale, whether it is a simple or wide-ranging configuration."

"The performance is great. We have four or five different Unity arrays, and they have all run flawlessly."

"It can be simple to deploy, the standup time is quite quick. The interface is quite quick. The terms are simple, intuitive, it's similar what was there in the VNXE before it. It's very simple to navigate and administer from the console."

"The fact that it's hybrid is the most valuable feature. We have the SSD so we put our SharePoint on there and some of the stuff that requires a little more speed. For SharePoint, we want the pages to respond a little more quickly. And it's nice to be able to use the slower storage for stuff that we don't need as quickly, like file servers."

"We just started doing a bunch of automation where, if an end-user's home directory or departmental share gets filled, I can set certain things through a Unity API so that if it reaches 95 or 98 percent full, it will automatically expand. Now, instead of our getting a ticket and having to go in and do it manually, it does that for us."

"Dell Unity XT offers data integration features."

More Dell Unity XT pros

"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is quite an elementary box, no frills. It does not have all the functionality of the DM but it is acceptable, it does its task. It integrates pretty well."

"The solution is very easy to set up."

"We have been working with the solution for around a year and so far it has shown itself to be stable."

"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."

"The most valuable features of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are the dual controllers, available installation documentation, and the option of multiple host bus adapter interfaces."

"Its initial setup process is easy."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pros

Cons

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"It is on the expensive side."

"We need better data deduplication."

"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."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

More Everpure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There's always room for improvement with the UI. That can be a little cumbersome at times."

"It could be a little easier to attach it to a network file system."

"We need to improve the controller to work as active-active. We also need to improve the snapshot on the Unity site."

"We went to the PowerMax because of the needs that we have for the business. We're doing true enterprise-level storage. So we went from Unity to PowerMax to give us that tier that we were looking for."

"We'd like to see a cheaper version of an all-flash array in that footprint."

"Compression and block deduplication on non-all-flash solutions."

"The solution should include a free process in the HPE portal that uses serial numbers to verify that hardware is genuine."

"The interface can be a little challenging for someone new."

More Dell Unity XT cons

"The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved."

"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."

"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."

"The features are limited."

"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."

"The difficult part comes when dealing with the host. You have to enable multi-pathing and other aspects that are needed for proper configuration. I don't know if there is room for a more hyper-conversion structure to work with, but this would be easier."

"Its performance could be faster."

"Usually, when a part fails, we have to replace it and it takes a while. It would be better if the part could be available locally here in Kenya so we don't have to wait so long to repair the solution."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

More Everpure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price of Dell Unity XT is reasonable. However, if you are buying a custom solution, it can come at a considerable price."

"The return on the investment was simply speeding up our entire vSphere stack, which allowed our developers and engineers to get their workloads done faster and simpler. We were experiencing VM snapshot times of 45 minutes to two or three hours, and it shrunk it down to under five minutes."

"From a pricing perspective, this solution is comparable to others on the market."

"Obtaining a warranty is easy."

"Because of the attractive price, we were able to get rid of more expensive arrays, standardize, and get rid of a lot of spinning disks. We also got rid of more expensive flash that we weren't properly utilizing."

"The ROI is right where we need it to be. It's a reasonably priced array."

"Licensing is a little bit confusing. Going through everything with them, there are a lot of line items to go over. Every single thing is broken down into a line item, and it starts to get really confusing in terms of what we're actually purchasing when it comes to the product."

"The price of Dell EMC Unity XT is not reasonable. They should lower it because the trend is to move to the cloud. They have to protect their market by giving commercial or financial incentives."

More Dell Unity XT pricing and cost advice

"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is a one-time purchase. There is a global price list available to find the price of the solution."

"We have a five-year contract for providing support."

"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."

"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."

"The solution's price could be better."

"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."

"It is an expensive solution."

"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pricing and cost advice

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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

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

University

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	62
Midsize Enterprise	49
Large Enterprise	94

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3

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

What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...

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What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...

See all answers

What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?

First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The price of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is very good. We chose this type of storage for the performance and the price.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

I use Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series to replace the old storage in our infrastructure. Additionally, I use it in custom...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 4% of the time

More Everpure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 32% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 13% of the time

Everpure FlashArray vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 10% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 5% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 1% of the time

More Dell Unity XT Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 20% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 10% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 8% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 8% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 5% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

February 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT

February 2026

Download Dell Unity XT product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

February 2026

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Also Known As

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

EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity

ThinkSystem DE Series

Overview

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe delivers high performance, reliability, and low latency, making it ideal for block storage in private cloud infrastructures and mission-critical applications.

Boasting robust data reduction, high availability, and seamless scalability, Everpure FlashArray X NVMe supports databases, VMware environments, and machine learning analytics. Known for its intuitive interface, superior support, volume snapshots, and AI-powered analytics, it efficiently manages storage needs, often deployed to replace outdated systems. Users highlight its simplistic management and easy configuration, although opportunities exist to enhance pricing, replication features, VNC integration, and storage capabilities.

What are the key features?

Data Reduction: Effective compression and deduplication improve storage efficiency.
Seamless Scalability: Easily scales to meet growing demands without downtime.
Volume Snapshots: Quickly create snapshots for data protection and recovery.
VMware Compatibility: Integrates smoothly with VMware environments for optimal performance.
AI-Powered Analytics: Provides insights for enhanced storage management and efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Low Latency and High Availability: Ensures rapid data access and uninterrupted service.
Easy Management: Intuitive interface simplifies configuration and monitoring.
Evergreen Model: Continuous upgrades without disruptive migrations.
Enhanced Support: Reliable service and support for critical applications.

Organizations in industries such as finance and healthcare implement Everpure FlashArray X NVMe to bolster data performance and reliability. They leverage its integration capabilities with Oracle databases and SQL workloads, supporting machine learning and virtualization. It's often chosen to upgrade legacy storage systems, ensuring high availability and speed for demanding environments.

Everpure (formerly Pure Storage)

Dell EMC Unity XT is one of the best all-flash storage arrays on the market today. Dell EMC Unity XT arrays are designed for performance, optimized for efficiency, and built for a multi-cloud world. In addition, they support digital transformation, enabling businesses to reach the full potential of their data capital quickly and easily. Dell EMC Unity’s All-Flash and Hybrid Flash storage platforms provide the performance, efficiency, enterprise-class software, and virtualization integrations required for running a wide range of virtualized applications.

Dell EMC Unity XT Features

Dell EMC Unity XT has many valuable key features, including:

Unified storage flexibility: With Dell EMC Unity XT you can consolidate separate storage platforms into a single Unity XT unified storage system via a simple and intuitive (HTML5) management GUI that also connects you to CloudIQ.
All-inclusive data protection: Dell EMC Unity XT offers a reliable way to protect application data with all-inclusive data protection services, including snapshots, data-at-rest drive encryption, replication, thin clones, and dynamic pools.
Software-defined solutions: Dell EMC Unity XT provides software-defined storage and HA for on-prem and in the cloud solutions.
Multi-cloud alignment: With Dell EMC Unity XT you have the ability to build and manage an effective data-first multi-cloud strategy. It allows you to consolidate public and private cloud resources that align with your business goals.
Metro node: This feature enables automated business continuity with zero RPO and RTO. It also provides greater flexibility through multi-platform support and replication to any array and has zero performance impact on the storage array.
Scalable file system: Dell EMC Unity XT is built with a robust 256TBu file system. The UFS64 file system includes up to 256 independent VMDK clones, 16 thin clones, space efficient snapshots with a simple space reclaim and low IO impact, file system shrink that can reclaim free blocks, simplified Quotas for User, and much more.
DevOps integrations: Dell EMC Unity XT supports the Container Storage Interface (CSI) plugin to run Kubernetes workloads.

Dell EMC Unity XT Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Dell EMC Unity XT include:

High-speed data access
Low latency
Dual-active controller architecture
Multi-cloud
Intuitive user interface
Cost efficient
Solid performance

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Dell EMC Unity XT users.

A Systems Engineering Manager at a manufacturing company says, "It is definitely one of the most robust, solid, well-performing products that I have dealt with. It is set it and forget it, which is pretty amazing." He also mentions, “We can do both block and file storage on one unit without purchasing a separate device.”

Peter S., Senior Technical Specialist at a healthcare company, states, “The most valuable feature is reliability. At the end of the day, it just runs. This solution is easy to work with and easy to maintain.”

PeerSpot user Melvin T., Senior Systems Engineer at Prosperity Bank, explains that the solution is “easy to use and we can add LUNs or space without interruption to end-users. We're able to access it from just about anywhere, as long as we have access to a browser. That feature is really neat because sometimes we will go to a different data center or a different site, and if we need to access it to see a LUN or to see any type of storage, we can do that. That's one of the big takeaways with Unity."

Dell Technologies

The DE All-Flash Series delivers the performance of more than 2,000 15k rpm HDDs, yet requires only 2% of the rack space, power, and cooling. Because it consumes 98% less space and power, DE Series can significantly improve the overall efficiency of your IT operations while continuing to meet your performance requirements.

Lenovo

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

February 2026

Free Report: Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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