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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 good, reliable, and fast storage."
"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"Its speed is superior to our existing Unity x00 model and it has performed substantially better than our x00 model and a little bit better than our x50 model."
"If a company is looking for an All-Flash Tier and they need extreme performance for individual workloads, Pure's the way to go, over something like a SolidFire."
"I appreciate the performance."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"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 quite an elementary box, no frills; it does not have all the functionality of the DM but it is acceptable, it does its task, and it integrates pretty well."
"My advice to others is that this is a straightforward, detailed documented, and supported solution."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is highly reliable, especially for block-level storage. It is stable, with minimal downtime and no issues beyond user errors."
"We have had a very good experience with customer service and support, as they answer questions very fast and resolve our issues."
"ThinkSystem is a good offer and can work out well if you can work with it to fit the use cases that you have."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"People using the applications are able to perform their tasks more quickly."
"NetApp AFF's flash technology offers great performance. This feature has been my go-to for managing data and ensuring speed and reliability."
"The technical support is fantastic. No one else is like their team. We're happy with them."
"All of the Oracle applications have been improved a lot since we began using All Flash and all of the processing and ETL, for instance, used to take 25 hours, now it is taking three, which improves a lot of parts of the price of applications and decreases TCO."
"The solution’s thin provisioning has allowed us to add new applications without having to purchase additional storage. We use thin provisioning for everything. We use the deduplication compression functionality for all of our NetApps. If we weren't using thin provisioning, we'd probably have two to times more storage on our floor right now than we do today."
"It has the most consistent performance for storage for VMware."
"NetApp is the leader in the field for high performance and storage systems."
"The performance of NetApp AFF allows our developers and researches to run models and their tests within a single workday instead of spreading out across multiple workdays."
 

Cons

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"The difficult part comes when dealing with the host. You have to enable multi-pathing and other aspects that are needed for proper configuration."
"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."
"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."
"The product could support advanced software integrations."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"You can not buy a lot of options for these devices. There are a lot of things that it does not do."
"Scalability on rack-mount servers is not as good as with Blade servers."
"Probably on the management side of things. It is very complex."
"In the pre-CDOT era, upgrades were a nightmare."
"I don't like the newest GUI. It needs more options. Some features have been removed. Oversight is not as good in the new GUI compared to the previous version. Though, it might be something that we just need to get used to."
"I want to see more send features."
"I would like to see a little more flexibility in customizing some of the SnapMirror stuff. We have been having a little trouble and, in the first round with tech support, they say, "Well, this is how we do it." It's not exactly throttled but it's limited in the number of connections it makes. We would like to be able to tweak that, to increase it a little bit, because we don't have half a dozen large areas that we are protecting, we have more like 40 or 50 areas. They run into each other a little bit and I don't want to spend time on them."
"We were migrating from Data ONTAP 7-Mode to its Cluster-Mode. Therefore, we had to get swing gear, then do the migration from loner gear and back onto our new gear. This was a bit difficult. It took us several months to do multiple migrations."
"It's a little behind on security."
"Support, I think could use a little bit of help. We can't seem to get to the backend guys fast enough."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"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."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"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 solution's price could be better."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."
"The pricing is good."
"I looked at other vendors for other potential projects and thought NetApp's pricing was very competitive."
"The solution is moderately priced."
"It is relatively cheap compared to other vendors."
"From an application standpoint, we have seen a lot of return investment on the speeds and responsiveness of the actual storage."
"Comparing this solution to others it may seem expensive, but the price to performance for NetApp is greater."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
"It is pretty expensive compared to other solutions. I would give it a seven or eight out of 10 in price (where 10 is expensive) compared to similar solutions."
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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
14%
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.
886,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.