DDN IntelliFlash vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

DataDirect Networks and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0, while Lenovo is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0. DataDirect Networks holds a 0.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series are two competing storage solutions. Despite the mixed feedback on some aspects of DDN IntelliFlash, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is considered the superior product due to its features and higher long-term return on investment.

Features: DDN IntelliFlash focuses on high-performance metrics, efficient data management capabilities, and cost-effectiveness. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series impresses with robust scalability, advanced data protection features, and enhanced performance. Both products bring valuable offerings, but Lenovo's advanced capabilities give it an edge.

Room for Improvement: DDN IntelliFlash users report limitations in scalability, a need for more comprehensive analytics tools, and mixed customer service reliability. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could benefit from a more intuitive setup process, improved documentation, and a simpler deployment model. Lenovo's areas for improvement are generally less critical.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash has a straightforward deployment model but mixed feedback on customer service. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series requires a steeper learning curve for deployment but has consistently strong customer service support.

Pricing and ROI: DDN IntelliFlash has competitive setup costs, making it budget-friendly. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series demands a higher upfront investment but offers better long-term ROI through enhanced performance and scalability. Lenovo's pricing is justified by its superior benefits, despite the initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

July 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 August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

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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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments

It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.

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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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

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

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."

"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."

"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."

"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."

"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"

"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."

"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."

"Data Compression: Up to 80% space reduction in the database"

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability."

"The FlexClone feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"The price of this solution is good."

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

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

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

"Last year, I did a DM Series installation with my colleague, and this installation was effortless because we had Lenovo support on the phone, so it was easy to get help if we had any problems."

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

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series pros

Cons

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

"The software layer has to improve."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

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

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."

"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."

"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."

"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."

"We had just one small stability problem with power flapping and it did not start up again automatically. We had to access service ports and manually restart the storage processors."

"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."

"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."

"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

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

"The solution should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements."

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

"The tool's pricing is high."

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

"The licensing model needs to be revisited. It needs to be simplified."

"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."

"Lenovo could have a wider variety of storage solutions in the NAS space."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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 product is expensive."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."

"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."

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

"The solution is highly-priced."

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

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

23%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

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?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?

It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?

DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...

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What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?

We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...

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 is your primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

My primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series ( /products/lenovo-thinksystem-dm-series-reviews ) is for storag...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 25% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

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VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 36% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 17% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 38% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 11% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

August 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

July 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series product report

Also Known As

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

Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series

ThinkSystem DM Series

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

Western Digital through its IntelliFlash arrays delivers high-performance storage with a complete range of features and connectivity options, including inline compression and deduplication, application and VM consistent snapshots, replication, RAID, data encryption, VMware vCenter integration, and multi-protocol support for SAN (FC, iSCSI) and NAS (NFS, SMBv3). IntelliFlash arrays deliver high availability through dualredundant and hot-swappable components, active/active or active/passive controllers, non-disruptive software upgrades, eMLC flash, and proactive cloud-based monitoring, analytics, and intelligence. A RESTful API provides scripted or programmatic control.

DataDirect Networks

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

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

July 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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