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Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs NetApp AFF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 1.7%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 8.6%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp AFF8.6%
Everpure FlashArray X NVMe2.0%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series1.7%
Other87.7%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
GP
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…
KennethEtsula - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at Spartec
Offers seamless installation and efficient data handling with robust support
NetApp AFF provides an all-flash storage solution for unified SAN solutions, supporting both SAN and NAS functionalities. Data reduction capabilities such as deduplication, compression, and compaction are standard features included with the license in NetApp AFF. With the storage efficiency from a NetApp AFF installation, users can manage substantial data running on all-flash. The features such as compaction and compression provide storage efficiency guarantees in an all-flash environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has drastically improved the performance of our high-end Oracle databases and allows us the ability to replication to a DR location with ease."
"After the testing, it was clear to us that the Pure FlashArray X NVMe was the easiest to manage and configure and had the best performance that we had seen in all the arrays."
"What we've seen on the Xs, and the Pures in general, is that we can scale way beyond what we need to without any degradation in performance."
"We generally always advise people to make the choice to go with Pure Storage because they won't regret it."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"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."
"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."
"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."
"ThinkSystem is a good offer and can work out well if you can work with it to fit the use cases that you have."
"The solution is very easy to troubleshoot, it doesn't take long to deploy, normally comes with a three-year warranty, and has the most features if you compare it to other models."
"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."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"Things that have been really useful, of course, are the clustering features and being able to stay online during failovers and code upgrades; and just being able to seamlessly do all sorts of movement of data without having to disrupt end-users' ability to get to those files. And we can take advantage of new shelves, new hardware, upgrade in place. It's kind of magic when it comes to doing those sorts of things."
"The technical support is fantastic. No one else is like their team. We're happy with them."
"We have not had any downtime with the FAS series."
"Our system is very stable and reliable, and even in case of network switch failure the A200 keeps serving data, with the correct initial setup focused on the final architecture."
"First of all, we have very low latency; we just moved a good piece of our stuff over from spinning disk onto All Flash FAS and now we are screaming, with things really fast and really low utilization."
"The most valuable features are that it's all flash and it's super fast."
"I'm from Germany, so we have lots of metro clusters. The ability to have two sides that are redundant across hundreds or thousands of kilometers is critical for our customers. We have several hundred customers with metro cluster systems, so that is one of the best features."
"With SSDs, All Flash FAS, and the help of ONTAP, it nails the performance."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product."
"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."
"It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"It is really entry-level. In the next release, I would like to see more functionality."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."
"You can not buy a lot of options for these devices. There are a lot of things that it does not do."
"Its performance could be faster."
"The total cost of ownership has increased a little."
"To be more competitive in the industry, they can develop deduplication, compression, and smarter features in the same array instead of all-flash."
"Knowledge base on the internet needs improvements so that I can find my own solution for stuff."
"Basically, they could do better in terms of software integration. There are a lot of features that, when we try to do it or, when NetApp tries to do it, they come across a lot of bugs which could affect us as customers."
"Sometimes it's difficult to escalate correctly and get the right people involved."
"As a customer, the ROI is still not that great. I don't see a unique selling point for NetApp."
"The stability is good but there is room for improvement with other options."
"I would like to see the ability to include more applications from applications to managed storage. If we can have more applications or more interface in more applications, that would be great."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"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."
"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 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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution's price could be better."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"It is an expensive solution."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"The price of NetApp is very expensive, but we don't know how much Pure is, so we can't compare."
"From an application standpoint, we have seen a lot of return investment on the speeds and responsiveness of the actual storage."
"It consolidates a lot of our storage into one or two chassis, which makes money savings in our data center."
"The list price of AFF is too expensive... they need to be careful with the pricing of the new NVMe disks. They are way too expensive."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
"Look at the different options that NetApp offers. Look for a model and option which fits your needs correctly. Don't buy a low-end product for a high-end job."
"The licensing and pricing are fine. As a reseller for the product, we need to make the differentiation in the minds of the customer. They are not just buying some tool that does only one thing, e.g., showing a LAN for a customer. The pricing is fair for what it is."
"NetApp AFF's pricing is competitive. It is not expensive or cheap. The tool's pricing is based on configurations and can cost around 150-160 dollars for 70 TB of storage."
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Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Jan 28, 2015
NetApp vs. XtremIO
Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
 

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.
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...
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 ...
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.
What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved.
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...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X, Pure FlashArray X NVMe
ThinkSystem DE Series
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.