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Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
215
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (22nd)
NetApp FAS Series
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), NAS (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
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…
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It releases those to new teams within minutes at a very small storage cost amount."
"The solution is stable with low vulnerabilities."
"Performance, dedupe, and that it works well with database workloads are its most valuable features."
"It overperforms both in terms of storage capacity and throughput, and bandwidth capability."
"It upgrades in place which means we'll be using it well into the future."
"I would recommend Pure Storage, as it is well-established."
"The connections are a lot faster than what we had in the past. One InfiniBand does what we did on all of our Fibre Channels."
"There was a dramatic improvement in operating costs just as a result of the environmentals and space, let alone the cost of the unit itself."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is highly reliable, especially for block-level storage. It is stable, with minimal downtime and no issues beyond user errors."
"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."
"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."
"We have been working with the solution for around a year and so far it has shown itself to be stable."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Flash cache is a great product."
"I have found all the features useful in NetApp FAS Series."
"You can use different protocols at the same time. Monitoring is also very easy in NetApp FAS Series. There is a free tool for monitoring."
"A reliable and easily managed storage system is a key performance factor. The system also has more features than we require."
"You really can't go wrong with NetApp products, They perform well, are rock solid, offer good space saving technologies, and the support is above par."
"Good solution architects and deployment guys are available."
"The migration of the volume on the cluster is very useful and easy to use."
 

Cons

"If I need to change or troubleshoot the dashboard, I cannot do it without calling support. If I want to move something critical, I cannot do it by myself. The dashboard blocks me from changing those critical things."
"In the next version of this program, I would like to see increased security, higher encryption, and faster throughput."
"I would like a feature to integrate with external or cloud solutions. For example, if I want to use this storage for a backup from the cloud, I want to have integration with the cloud vendors, such as Microsoft, Oracles, or Amazon. It could be available as an API to allow seamless integration. Additionally, the solution could improve by having native integration with a cloud provider, such as VMware or Microsoft, this would reduce the need to use third-party solutions to complete the task."
"It was a little costly."
"I would like the ability to swap out the network adapters into it. So, without taking out the whole controller, I would like to be able to swap adapters."
"The primary drawback is the cost, which can be prohibitive for small configurations."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The solution could be more scalable, although it suits our present needs."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."
"Usually, when a part fails, we have to replace it and it takes a while."
"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."
"Its performance could be faster."
"It is really entry-level. In the next release, I would like to see more functionality."
"The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"The solution’s pricing is expensive."
"Interfacing with the cloud environment could be better. I want to be able to move some cloud volume and integrate it seamlessly with my home on-premise storage."
"The only downside is in ease in management; it is not easy to use."
"NetApp for all these years has been improving their storage. The only area that could be improved is to lower prices for their All Flash FAS."
"For long term partnership in Myanmar, the local warehouse should be built in Myanmar that's something I'd like to see. We have some issues with supply so there is sometimes a delay in getting the hardware."
"The adoption of flash by NetApp has also been lagging behind the trendsetters, like TMS, Nimble, and others."
"With scalability, we feel the system is limited."
"The solution can improve on the replication features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors."
"The Evergreen Storage subscription is a really cool concept. As long as we maintain our subscription, we will get new controllers every three years and really never have a forklift upgrade like we currently are doing. Just that future-proofing is an ease off of my mind to know that I won't have to do what I'm dong right now again."
"The guaranty that Pure Storage provides when you purchase it doesn't meet the overall capacity needs to provide extra storage, if needed. Thus, it is not meeting our expectations."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"It is an expensive solution."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."
"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."
"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"We purchased it for four years, and it wasn't expensive. It was reasonable. Every company has a different agreement with NetApp. We got everything we wanted with all the bells and whistles and all the features and functionalities."
"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."
"There are products available in market with comparatively lower costs."
"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."
"The price, compared to competitors, is quite high."
"The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is reasonable for its performance."
"The NetApp FAS series price is very competitive compared to other solutions on the market it is a good choice."
"it’s not an inexpensive solution and it may not be for the cost-sensitive customer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise151
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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...
Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
I do not handle the pricing part of NetApp FAS Series since it is managed by the sales team.
What needs improvement with NetApp FAS Series?
There is room for improvement when it comes to response time and first-level support quality. If a new feature needs ...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
ThinkSystem DE Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,678 professionals have used our research since 2012.