Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Zadara comparison

Sponsored
 

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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zadara
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
33rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (16th), Compute Service (10th), Public Cloud Storage Services (15th), File and Object Storage (22nd)
 

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 Zadara is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Gastone Canali - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Kirubel Behailu - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing storage management efficiency with user-friendly experience
Our customers are using Zadara for their research and development environments. We provide infrastructure for government projects, but we are often not fully aware of their specific usage.  I typically use it for our infrastructure and offer both Zadara and Microsoft Azure to our customers Zadara…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."
"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. It integrates pretty well."
"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."
"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"We have been working with the solution for around a year and so far it has shown itself to be stable."
"The solution is very easy to troubleshoot. It's one of the most valuable features. It also doesn't take long to deploy and normally it comes with a three-year warranty."
"One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage compute instances in there. Being able to integrate with compute, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections."
"I find Zadara's user-friendliness from both the customer and engineering perspectives highly appreciated."
"A nice feature is the immutable object storage, which can be used in conjunction with Veeam."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of deployment options."
"The processing is much faster with this product."
"One of the most useful features is that they provide iSCSI as a service."
"The most valuable feature of Zadara is its ease of use and safety. Overall the solution is a complete package, it has all the features needed."
"Being able to scale on demand, and being able to get out of our security operation center, and not having to purchase hardware upfront, has drastically reduced the overhead that was required to maintain our information. We have also gained additional capabilities in terms of speed of replicating that information."
 

Cons

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"The software layer has to improve."
"It is on the expensive side."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"We need better data deduplication."
"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."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"The product could support advanced software integrations."
"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."
"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 solution could be more scalable, although it suits our present needs."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"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."
"Having iSCSI over the internet using a VPN, the IPSec tunnel is really the only thing that I find missing from this product."
"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available. I would like to see more disclosure and information around what fixes or what enhancements are available within a patch, and help in coordinating and scheduling that. Right now, it's driven more by the customer in reaching out via a support ticket."
"In the next release, there can be some improvements to the web console by adding more features because the console is simple. Additionally, the calculator could improve."
"Currently, when we do firmware upgrades, it sometimes causes issues and is not as nondisruptive as desired."
"The range of support of VMware could be better. It can support Windows, however, it cannot support other operating systems like IBM AIX. This needs to improve."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
"There is room for improvement in pricing as it is currently quite expensive."
"The cost is not favorable as Zadara does not provide competitive rates for regions like South Africa and Ethiopia."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"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."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"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 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 solution's price could be better."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."
"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."
"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."
"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."
"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."
"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."
"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Retailer
6%
 

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.
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 ...
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 needs improvement with Zadara?
The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can ...
What is your primary use case for Zadara?
I use this product as storage. Specifically, I use it as big storage. That's the main use case for Zadara ( /products...
What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?
As for the pros and cons, the main concerns are the complexity of the initial installation and the complicated mainte...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
ThinkSystem DE Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,253 professionals have used our research since 2012.