Huawei OceanStor vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series comparison

Huawei and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Huawei is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.9, while Lenovo is ranked #21 with an average rating of 10.0. Huawei holds a 2.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Huawei 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

Huawei OceanStor and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are two prominent products in the storage solutions market. Huawei OceanStor offers a competitive edge with its affordability, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series stands out for its performance and reliability.

Features: Huawei OceanStor impresses users with its scalability, high availability, and efficient data management. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series stands out with its advanced integration capabilities, high-speed performance, and robust reliability.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest Huawei OceanStor needs improvements in backup functionalities, performance under heavy workloads, and enhanced user interface. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series users point out the need for better support options, improved documentation, and enhanced firmware updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Huawei OceanStor receives praise for a straightforward deployment process but has mixed reviews on customer service responsiveness. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is valued for its ease of setup with more favorable feedback regarding customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Huawei OceanStor is recognized for its cost-effectiveness and reasonable ROI. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, though more expensive, promises higher ROI due to its performance efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

December 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 February 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Huawei OceanStor is 2.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Huawei OceanStor	2.3%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.5%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series	2.0%
Other	94.2%

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.

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ChukwuemekaOnyemelukwe

Infrastructure Administrator - Server, Storage & Virtualization at MicroAccess Ltd

Uses a proprietary technology with simple interface and has easy deployment

If you are not generating a substantial amount of data, the available storage space might suffice, making scalability less of a concern. However, if your data generation increases and you require more storage, Huawei OceanStor offers solutions to expand your storage capacity. Expanding storage resources can involve additional costs and configuration efforts. Acquiring more storage solutions and ensuring their integration with your existing setup might require a significant investment of time and resources. While this process can be complex, it allows for seamless scalability as your data storage needs grow. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

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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…

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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

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

"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."

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

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

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

"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."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Stability: The product is designed to have always HA (High Availability) with redundant network and processors."

"The support is excellent."

"If your virtual machine that resides on it completely fills the storage space, thanks to it's built-in function of all-zero data space reclamation, you just have to ask to System Engineer to run a zero-free on hosts (thin provisioned) and you will get more space instantaneously."

"Huawei OceanStor provides numerous features that are tailored to cater to the requirements of all types of companies."

"The performance and ease of management are the most valuable features."

"OceanStor is cheaper than Dell EMC, and its management interface is quite simple."

"Great value for money."

"Huawei OceanStor is a good product. Its interface is very simple. The complexities we encounter with recovery points are gone. We just attach to remote storage, click the application, and it starts."

More Huawei OceanStor pros

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

"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."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"

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

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

"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."

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

"The solution is very easy to set up."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pros

Cons

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"The software layer has to improve."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

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

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"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."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The overall price of the solution should be reduced."

"Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore."

"The duration of the built-in snapshot technology must be improved."

"The management is not a good feature in all of Huawei products. It's not easy or simple. Huawei has some problems with management and handling storage information from one interface."

"Technical support could be more helpful."

"Based on what we were quoted, the stated capacity was not a true reflection of the actual capacity. The data store ran out of space, and Huawei had to send a new unit."

"The security could be a bit more robust."

"Configuration complexity and the tools available."

More Huawei OceanStor cons

"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."

"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."

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

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

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

"Its performance could be faster."

"The product could support advanced software integrations."

"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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The product is cheap."

"Huawei's prices are very good compared to those of its competitors."

"This product value matches its price."

"The tool's pricing is competitive and affordable. It has the best possible pricing that we can get from Huawei. The prices are fixed and there are no additional costs."

"Payment is determined by the amount of storage capacity required, and we have paid 50,000 euros for our usage."

"Huawei OceanStor is priced very well but is a bit complicated."

"Its price is affordable."

"Pricing is very fair."

More Huawei OceanStor pricing and cost advice

"It is an expensive solution."

"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."

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

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

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

"The solution's price could be better."

"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."

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

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

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	26
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	7

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.

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei OceanStor's pricing is very aggressive, making it highly competitive.

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What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore....

See all answers

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.

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What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

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

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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 Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

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Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 17% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 7% of the time

Infortrend Eonstor GS Family vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 2% of the time

More Huawei OceanStor Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 22% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 9% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 3% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor

January 2026

Download Huawei OceanStor product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Also Known As

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

OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System, OceanStor 18000 V3 Series Storage Systems, OceanStor 6800 V3 Storage System

ThinkSystem DE Series

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.

Pure Storage

OceanStor Dorado V3 is the industry's first all-flash storage that puts NVMe into commercial use. It is specially designed for enterprises' mission-critical businesses, meeting the most-demanding performance and reliability requirements of databases, VDI, server virtualization, and SAP HANA.

Huawei

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

Piraeus, Clinique Univeritaires Saint-Luc

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

December 2025

Free Report: Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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