Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp FAS Series

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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

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

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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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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Srikanth Purushothaman

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.

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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

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"It has good, reliable, and fast storage."

"Overall stability is very good."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"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."

"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."

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

More Everpure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"We have had a very good experience with customer service and support, as they answer questions very fast and resolve our issues."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is highly reliable, especially for block-level storage. It is stable, with minimal downtime and no issues beyond user errors."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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

"Fast Snapshots"

"The most valuable features are compression and dedupe."

"It helps us reduce costs because its data compression saves a lot of capacity we'd otherwise have to have."

"The most valuable feature of the NetApp FAS Series is its stability."

"The support is very good."

"The best feature is its ONTAP product line for Ransomware protection. It also has features for file storage and block storage. The solution is stable. We've had no issues with it. The tool is scalable and meets our requirements. The technical support and the supporting partner are great. The initial setup is straightforward. It is very easy to maintain the product. The feature set is excellent. I recommend the solution."

"The storage efficiency provided a maximum savings in our storage utilization."

"Flexible and reliable storage solution with multiple features such as cloning, replication, and deduplication. Data migration can be done without any performance implications on the production systems."

More NetApp FAS Series pros

Cons

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product."

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

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

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

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

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

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

More Everpure FlashArray X NVMe cons

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

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

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

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

"The solution could be more scalable, although it suits our present needs."

"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."

"While it is a reliable product, it could be improved. 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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

"One of the issues that we have had with NetApp in upgrading over the years is that migrating data from one system to another is one-way only."

"We are not able to connect to the support of NetApp from Sudan. We have to go through many agents for support, which makes it difficult."

"We’ve hit some bugs in the ONTAP code that’s caused it to crash."

"NetApp FAS Series could improve by being more secure."

"The current snapshot technology in VMFS is to say the least very poor – best practice is to have no more than 2-3 snapshots in a chain (even though the maximum is 32) and to use no single snapshot for more than 24-72 hours – the reason is simple, storage performance will suffer if you create a snapshot on a VM."

"It's hard to find in-person training that fits our schedule in our area. They offer a lot of online training, but we need somewhere to go because we can't really get away from the office."

"As I see it, there could be more interfaces, more cache, etc."

"Integration with most of the third-party BR tools and a clear roadmap for next releases should be available."

More NetApp FAS Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

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

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

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

More Everpure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It is an expensive solution."

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

"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."

"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."

"The solution's price could be better."

"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."

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

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

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pricing and cost advice

"In general, I find NetApp to be very expensive. That's the main issue I have with them. So it's a drawback in terms of pricing."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. We pay a one-time purchase price."

"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."

"The scalability is pretty good, but it's too expensive."

"The price it not low, but comparing features to other vendors, the price can be balanced."

"NetApp FAS Series could be less expensive."

"Low-priced product, but pricing could still be made more attractive."

"The process for going to cluster mode is expensive."

More NetApp FAS Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

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	10
Midsize Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	38
Large Enterprise	58

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...

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 do you like most about NetApp FAS Series?

Flexibility in data replication.

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.

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Compared 17% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2026

Download Everpure FlashArray X NVMe product report

All-Flash Storage

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

NetApp FAS Series

Download NetApp FAS Series product report

Also Known As

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

ThinkSystem DE Series

No data available

Overview

Everpure FlashArray X NVMe delivers high performance, reliability, and low latency, making it ideal for block storage in private cloud infrastructures and mission-critical applications.

Boasting robust data reduction, high availability, and seamless scalability, Everpure FlashArray X NVMe supports databases, VMware environments, and machine learning analytics. Known for its intuitive interface, superior support, volume snapshots, and AI-powered analytics, it efficiently manages storage needs, often deployed to replace outdated systems. Users highlight its simplistic management and easy configuration, although opportunities exist to enhance pricing, replication features, VNC integration, and storage capabilities.

What are the key features?

Data Reduction: Effective compression and deduplication improve storage efficiency.
Seamless Scalability: Easily scales to meet growing demands without downtime.
Volume Snapshots: Quickly create snapshots for data protection and recovery.
VMware Compatibility: Integrates smoothly with VMware environments for optimal performance.
AI-Powered Analytics: Provides insights for enhanced storage management and efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Low Latency and High Availability: Ensures rapid data access and uninterrupted service.
Easy Management: Intuitive interface simplifies configuration and monitoring.
Evergreen Model: Continuous upgrades without disruptive migrations.
Enhanced Support: Reliable service and support for critical applications.

Organizations in industries such as finance and healthcare implement Everpure FlashArray X NVMe to bolster data performance and reliability. They leverage its integration capabilities with Oracle databases and SQL workloads, supporting machine learning and virtualization. It's often chosen to upgrade legacy storage systems, ensuring high availability and speed for demanding environments.

Everpure (formerly 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

NetApp FAS series is an enterprise-level storage system that provides a wide variety of data management services, including data protection, block and file storage, and data management.

NetApp FAS is designed to be highly scalable, allowing your organization to grow storage capacity on demand. NetApp FAS also supports multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel, as well as various storage architectures, including SAN (Storage Area Network) and NAS (Network-Attached Storage).

The FAS series has multiple data protection and data management features, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication, to help secure your data and manage it more efficiently. The system integrates with other NetApp products and solutions, to create a unified data management platform. The system can be deployed on-premise, on multi-cloud environments, or hybrid.

NetApp FAS Series Benefits and Features

NetApp FAS series provides its users with several key benefits and features, including:

Scalability: NetApp FAS series is easy to scale, allowing organizations to rapidly grow their storage capacity according to demand.

Security: Protect and manage your data with various data protection and data management tools, including snapshots, cloning, replication, and deduplication.

Seamless integration: Integrate with other NetApp products and solutions to ensure a unified data management platform across on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

Reduced costs: Consolidation of multiple storage boxes greatly reduces the data center footprint. From a management point of view, with NetApp FAS you manage a single storage box instead of multiple storage boxes.
Compatibility: Forward and backward compatibility ensures that you don’t have to trade in existing controllers. New controllers can always integrate with previously released controllers.

Multi-protocol support: Support for multiple protocols, including NFS, SMB, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel.

High performance and availability: The solution has high input and output per second performance and ensures that critical data remains accessible in the event of a hardware failure.
Intuitive interface: The FAS series has a user-friendly interface and management dashboard, making it easy to manage your storage systems. With unified management, you can quickly run a single protocol on your entire system
Data cloning and replication: Easily clone databases of any size. Clones occupy a very, very small footprint on the storage until they are severed from the main database. Replications carried out by the system are fast and require very little bandwidth.

Reviews from Real Users

NetApp FAS Series stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its speed, reliability, and a wide variety of features.

Adriano S., IT project and infrastructure service manager, writes, “The replication feature is noteworthy because it's faster than most and it uses little bandwidth. Then there's the friendly interface that the equipment offers. With this interface, it is very easy to manage.”

Temitope O., a NetApp product manager at Hiperdist Ltd, says, “I like the unified management feature because sometimes you end up running a single protocol on the entire system. You rather have a system for a particular protocol and another system for other protocols, especially in a big environment like mine.”

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp FAS Series