Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Pure Storage FlashBlade comparison

Lenovo and Pure Storage are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Lenovo is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.7, while Pure Storage is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0. Lenovo holds a 2.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to Pure Storage’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 60% of Lenovo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Pure Storage users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Pure Storage FlashBlade and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series are top contenders in the data storage market. Pure Storage FlashBlade has an edge in deployment simplicity, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series stands out for its feature richness, making it worth the investment despite higher setup costs.

Features: Pure Storage FlashBlade features high performance, scalability, and simplified management. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers extensive data management capabilities, versatility, and unmatched backup solutions.

Room for Improvement: Pure Storage FlashBlade needs better integration capabilities, enhanced advanced analytics, and optimized disaster recovery options. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series should improve administrative complexity, cost structure, and user interface simplification.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Pure Storage FlashBlade is known for straightforward deployment and reliable customer support. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series involves a more complex setup with varied satisfaction in customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Pure Storage FlashBlade offers favorable setup costs and strong ROI. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, although more expensive, delivers high value with comprehensive features and satisfactory ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

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 DM Series is 2.2%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 1.8%, down from 2.2% 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.

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Mark Richmond

Chief Technology Officer at Next Level Communications

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…

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Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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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 solution is very straightforward to set up."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"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."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."

"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."

"The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload."

"One of the most valuable features of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is the snapshot feature."

"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."

"Scalable and stable storage array."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well."

"The servers are fast and affordable."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series pros

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

Cons

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

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

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

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"It is on the expensive side."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."

"It takes a very long time to enter the management console, as well as to restart the system, and these are things that should be improved."

"There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers."

"Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve by having a snapshot feature. Additionally, there can be other features added to help restore the data faster."

"This is an expensive solution."

"The tool's pricing is high."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

"The speed could be improved."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"The solution is expensive."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."

"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."

"The solution is highly-priced."

"Lenovo offers two software tiers for the DM Series: basic and premium. If you need more features like the MetroCluster, you must buy the premium version. You can stick to the basic software if you don't need MetroCluster or features like asynchronous replication. That makes DM Series a little cheaper."

"The price is a little high."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The price could be cheaper."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade 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

20%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

33%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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 DM Series?

The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

There are extra expenses beyond the standard licensing fee for features such as replication and deduplication, which ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

The deployment process of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is very complicated compared to previous GUI systems. Many cus...

See all answers

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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

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

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 7% of the time

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NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 39% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 12% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 1% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade 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 DM Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

March 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Also Known As

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

ThinkSystem DM Series

No data available

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

To meet enterprise storage requirements, ThinkSystem All-Flash DM Series systems provide high performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data management. DM Series runs on ONTAP data management software, which gives customers unified storage across block-and-file workloads. It accelerates your business while improving the efficiency, flexibility, and reliability of your IT operations.

Lenovo

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

Free Report: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade

Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. Pure Storage FlashBlade and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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