HPE Primera vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.1, while Lenovo is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 3.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.7% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and HPE Primera compete in enterprise data storage solutions. HPE Primera appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and long-term value.

Features: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is valued for data management capabilities, reliability, and straightforward deployment. HPE Primera is noted for performance, scalability, and superior features for high performance and future scalability.

Room for Improvement: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve integration capabilities, ease of use, and mixed customer service reviews. HPE Primera could simplify its initial setup, reduce complexity, and shorten deployment times.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers straightforward deployment but has mixed customer service reviews. HPE Primera takes longer to deploy but has dedicated support and better overall customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series has a lower setup cost and faster ROI. HPE Primera is more expensive upfront but delivers better long-term ROI and value with its advanced features and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

January 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:

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 3.8%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.7%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Taufeeq Rauf

Head of IT at NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATION TECHNOLOGIES (PVT.) LTD.

Offers a simple user interface and is useful for data replication

I use HPE Primera for mission-critical applications. My company uses the product as a storage solution for our machines. The availability of HPE Primera in our company is critical for us, considering that we operate in an HA environment where we can't have downtime since we need to deal with cheque clearance for banks. The product's interface is simple to use. I am satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The ease of use of the product's interface has directly had an impact on our company's operations, along with the improvement in the availability and performance of machines. Compared to HPE Primera, I work with a much more reliable storage solution like Dell PowerStore. Compared to HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore's features related to deduplication are very good, and it also offers a physical storage capacity of eight TB, which can be expanded up to forty TB. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it only after taking into consideration their usage and requirements. From the price and performance point of view, Dell PowerStore is a better choice. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

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Mark Richmond

Chief Technology Officer at Next Level Communications

Reliable and fast servers with good support

We use on-premise servers with Lenovo ThinkSystem. We set up Hyper-V and load multiple types of servers including a domain controller, a SQL Server, and application servers The solution provides fast servers that are reasonably priced. We set up RAID ten to ensure drive redundancy, leading to…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"I appreciate the performance."

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

"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 latency is good."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"HPE Primera has good integration. All the users are using HP servers and some systems, such as Synergy, which integrate well into the solution."

"The product is stable."

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

"The most important thing that we had found when we purchased this product around six months back was its 100% availability and uptime."

"The product has better replication features than the previous products."

"The interface is simplified."

"The initial setup is simple."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the artificial intelligence for the storage inside of the software and firmware because customers do not like functionalities which require manual interruption."

More HPE Primera pros

"The price of this solution is good."

"The servers are fast and affordable."

"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."

"Last year, I did a DM Series installation with my colleague, and this installation was effortless because we had Lenovo support on the phone, so it was easy to get help if we had any problems."

"Scalable and stable storage array."

"Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability."

"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."

"The FlexClone feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

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

"The software layer has to improve."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"We used to receive hardware errors a lot of times. The ambient temperatures rise rate was approximately 35 to 55 degrees, but when it was approximately 27 or 28, we used to get errors a lot."

"There are certain features that require engineering-level access, which should be accessible to storage admins as well."

"The solution could prove the reporting."

"Like most storage, we want to see flash become more and more stable. Like any flash that uses MLC or TLC techniques, over time, the more writes you have, the less usable the storage becomes. They try to plan for this and have a lot of extra space in the arrays, but over time, their performance does degrade. This is true for any flash storage."

"One of the drawbacks of the model we purchased is that it is not running NVMe drives. Even though they say that it is NVMe-ready, it is still on the SSD drives. The model that we purchased has only eight hard drives, and only the ones on the top could work on NVMe. The rest of them are still on the SSD. Its competitors, such as EMC and Pure Storage, are moving or have already moved to NVMe. HPE should improve this solution for NVMe. HPE should also improve IOs in this solution. IOs in HPE are weaker than Hitachi and Pure Storage."

"On the hardware side, you should have the ability to expand capacity to larger numbers."

"We would like to have more flash storage and its stability. This is an area of challenge for us."

"The pricing is very high."

More HPE Primera cons

"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five."

"This is an expensive solution."

"The solution needs a simpler licensing theme around the DM series. The problem is if you only need one of the features, you still have to buy the whole thing. The licensing needs to be more granular or flexible so you have the option to only license FlexCone or Inline Compression features."

"There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve by having a snapshot feature. Additionally, there can be other features added to help restore the data faster."

"The solution should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements."

"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."

"Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"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."

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

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

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

"From what I see, this is competitively-priced and HPE are doing their best to stay competitive."

"The pricing for HDD was good."

"HPE Primera is an expensive product but has competitive pricing."

"HPE Primera is a little bit higher than Dell PowerStore...HPE Primera costs around 80,000 USD."

"The solution is quite cost-effective."

"I rate the product price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"There is only a one-time license purchase needed and no additional costs. If HP could reduce the training cost, then that would be advantageous to the seller."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."

"Lenovo offers two software tiers for the DM Series: basic and premium. If you need more features like the MetroCluster, you must buy the premium version. You can stick to the basic software if you don't need MetroCluster or features like asynchronous replication. That makes DM Series a little cheaper."

"The solution is highly-priced."

"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Educational Organization

45%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

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What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

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

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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...

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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...

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What do you like most about HPE Primera?

For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.

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What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload.

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

The pricing is cost-effective and less expensive compared to HP servers.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers. Althou...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 38% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerMax NVMe vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

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HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 29% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Primera

Compared 5% of the time

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NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 38% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 12% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 8% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

December 2024

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

January 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series product report

Also Known As

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

Primera

ThinkSystem DM Series

Learn More

Pure Storage

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Lenovo

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.

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

To meet enterprise storage requirements, ThinkSystem All-Flash DM Series systems provide high performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data management. DM Series runs on ONTAP data management software, which gives customers unified storage across block-and-file workloads. It accelerates your business while improving the efficiency, flexibility, and reliability of your IT operations.

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

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Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

January 2025

Free Report: HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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