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

Lenovo and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Lenovo is ranked #23 with an average rating of 9.3, while NetApp is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0. Lenovo holds a 2.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Lenovo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are leading contenders in the all-flash storage market. Users are happier with the performance and durability of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays, thus giving it an upper hand.

Features: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays offers high performance, reliability, and compatibility with various environments. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series features advanced data protection, scalability, and sophisticated functionalities. However, NetApp has a slight edge in terms of consistent performance and user satisfaction.

Room for Improvement: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays could enhance its scalability, support for additional protocols, and user documentation. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series needs improvements in software updates, better documentation, and streamlined user interface. NetApp's issues appear less impactful on overall performance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays users find the deployment straightforward and praised the support team's expertise. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series had mixed reviews concerning deployment ease and highlighted a need for better customer service. Thus, NetApp EF-Series holds an advantage in this area.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are considered expensive, but users believe the performance justifies the cost. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is seen as more cost-effective with decent ROI but less stellar in long-term performance metrics. Consequently, while Lenovo offers better initial expenditure, NetApp's ROI is perceived higher due to its robust performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

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

April 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 April 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.6%, down from 0.6% 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.

Read full review

Gastone Canali

IT Consultant at Effegibi

Provides good stability and is reliable in terms of performance

The solution is reliable in terms of performance They should include a snapshot feature for the solution. We have been using the solution for two to three years. The solution is stable. We have 60 solution users in our organization. The solution's initial setup process is easy. It takes three…

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Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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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 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."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

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

"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 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."

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

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

"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"

"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."

"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."

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

"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."

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

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pros

"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the performance of the database access."

"I like the performance aspect of EF Series. It basically provides everything that we are looking for as a solution, very low latency and very high performance."

"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."

"We do a lot of in-house, application-dependent type things, where we find the different niches to the different things. Certain things they do better. We've found that it actually does very well on some of our higher-end applications."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

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

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"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."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

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

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

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

"The product could support advanced software integrations."

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

"Its performance could be faster."

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

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

"It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."

"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."

"The price of the All Flash solution is very high."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"The pricing could be cheaper and it should have documentation in more languages, specifically, Russian."

"This solution does not have any compression or deduplication."

"The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"The product is expensive."

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

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

"It is an expensive solution."

"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."

"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

"They provide licenses upon purchase, so there's no need for additional licenses. Regarding additional expenses apart from the standard licensing fees, such as for support or maintenance, there aren't any. Updates take around twenty to thirty minutes, including rebooting the systems, and we haven't faced any problems with the NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We utilize various other storages like Fujitsu, IBM, and Dalian SIP, but the NetApp EF-Series stands out as we've had no issues throughout the entire year of usage."

"he price point that we're getting is very competitive in the market. Since we are buying in such a large quantity, they gave us a huge discount."

"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."

"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."

"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."

"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."

"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."

"The cost of our license is approximately $200,000 over three years for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. There can be additional costs for storage. For example, if you want to have eight terabytes."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

18%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The solution's initial setup process is easy.

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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 do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 32% 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 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 32% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 14% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 12% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 7% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 33% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

March 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

April 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

March 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

ThinkSystem DE Series

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-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

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

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

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

April 2025

Free Report: Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

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