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Lenovo ThinkSystem DM 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:
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
Users praise Pure FlashArray X NVMe's responsive customer support despite occasional delays in engineer access and spare parts.
Sentiment score
8.5
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series support is reliable but can improve in after-hours response and connectivity issues.
Sentiment score
8.1
NetApp AFF support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, with some users noting escalation improves resolution satisfaction.
Rather than Pure just saying it's Cisco's problem, call Cisco, they actually got on with a TAC engineer and talked us through it.
The guys in South Africa, and they're very, very good.
What I like about Pure Storage technical support is that when you enter a request, you immediately get a response.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
5.2
FlashArray X NVMe needs pricing, deduplication, UI, replication, and security improvements, plus SMB options and enhanced cloud offerings.
Sentiment score
5.0
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series needs simpler licensing, cost-effective tools, better marketing, and enhancements in configuration, features, and installation.
Sentiment score
5.5
NetApp AFF users seek reduced costs, streamlined setup, enhanced performance, better integration, improved support, and user-friendly management tools.
I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center.
We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency.
We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Pure FlashArray X NVMe excels in scalable workload handling, praised for simplicity and adaptability despite customization and cost limits.
Sentiment score
5.5
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers scalable solutions for medium to large companies, emphasizing workload-based growth over user numbers.
Sentiment score
7.7
NetApp AFF excels in scalability, offering flexible storage expansion and performance, despite some cost concerns, ideal for growing environments.
We also have an X90R2 with two petabytes of NVMe in it which fits in about six rack units of space.
We are able to push the X70 way past our current needs from a throughput and IOPS perspective – without any degradation on latency.
We have also performed storage and controller upgrades live with zero downtime.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
7.8
Pure FlashArray X NVMe's pricing, though high, is seen as a cost-effective investment with competitive and reasonable annual support fees.
Sentiment score
7.8
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers flexible, competitive pricing, aligning costs to needs, with user satisfaction despite some high pricing concerns.
Sentiment score
7.8
NetApp AFF is costly but valued for efficiency and performance, offering savings and competitive pricing against Oracle.
While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.
The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.
We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Pure FlashArray X NVMe is highly reliable, offering excellent performance and support, with most users rating stability 9-10.
Sentiment score
9.1
Users praise Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series for its stability and reliability, giving it high ratings and positive feedback.
Sentiment score
8.5
NetApp AFF is lauded for its dependable, stable performance, with minimal downtime and quickly resolved minor issues.
We have gone through multiple software upgrades, as well as completely non-disruptive hardware upgrades.
During the eight years, there have been no problems such as hardware failure or stopping.
There was one minor issue when the M70s were first released – but they have been 100% stable since.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.1
Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers high performance, ease of use, and efficiency, with robust support and VMware integration.
Sentiment score
8.8
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers efficient storage, cloud tiering, robust ONTAP features, and reliable performance for diverse workloads.
Sentiment score
8.1
NetApp AFF offers high-speed performance, seamless upgrades, and efficient data management, enhancing scalability and operational efficiency.
Going from a legacy vendor to Pure Storage, we saw reductions in MRP reports previously running at six hours going to 30 minutes.
The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance.
The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use.
 

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
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Ranking in All-Flash Storage
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
310
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.8%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 10.6%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Paul Pearson - PeerSpot reviewer
Works well, is easy to implement, and has upgrade analysis capabilities
We love the product. Pure Storage works really well. The CAT tool and also the ability to upgrade the unit's place grades are great. It allows for in-place control or upgrades. It's a very simple implementation. They have a good tool to analyze upgrades. The stability is good. Technical support has been excellent.
Mark Richmond - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and fast servers with good support
We use on-premise servers with Lenovo ThinkSystem. We set up Hyper-V and load multiple types of servers including a domain controller, a SQL Server, and application servers The solution provides fast servers that are reasonably priced. We set up RAID ten to ensure drive redundancy, leading to…
Anna Sofo - PeerSpot reviewer
Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency
I like NetApp AFF's deduplication. The solution's AutoSupport feature is efficient and effective because customers are notified of potential issues before they experience problems with NetApp. The support is sold based on metro clusters, so they guarantee the client's business continuity. NetApp has an Active IQ app that allows you to get information on your smartphone.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
62%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
 

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?
After implementation, there are limitations, such as the number of paths, file systems, and replication options. It f...
What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?
The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?
The pricing is cost-effective and less expensive compared to HP servers.
What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?
There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers. Althou...
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
ThinkSystem DM 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 DM Series vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,795 professionals have used our research since 2012.