Dell XtremIO vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Pure Storage Logo
19,368 views|10,287 comparisons
99% willing to recommend
Dell Technologies Logo
1,989 views|1,512 comparisons
80% willing to recommend
Lenovo Logo
4,074 views|3,517 comparisons
50% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell XtremIO and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Dell XtremIO vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Their REST API is wonderful, well-documented, and easy to use.""I use all the features of this solution and I find them to be easy to use and functional, such as the compression and capacity to expand.""The most valuable features are the replication of data and the continuous snapshot that we can take from the disc.""The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before.""The tool has reduced our power consumption.""Provides fast access and is user-friendly.""Pure Storage FlashArray's overall speed is its most valuable feature.""The performance of the storage is just unbelievable."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Pros →

"I like the deduplication and auto-tiering features.""XtremIO is very stable.""Xtrem10's features are more simple to implement. The integration and interface are also good.""We've seen great enhancements from the performance point of view. There's good availability, stability, and continuity, but the performance actually has increased by 60 or 70%.""It was very easy and straightforward to setup.""The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're continuously improving their research and development.""Snapshots are valuable because of their seamless nature, as well as the minimal space each snapshot takes.""Thin storage allocation"

More Dell XtremIO Pros →

"The price of this solution is good.""The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well.""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.""We are satisfied with the stability.""The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload.""Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability.""The FlexClone feature is the solution's most valuable aspect.""The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Pros →

Cons
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller.""I feel like there is too much automation; the user doesn't have any manual input.""The way Pure Storage does the controller storage warranty or replacement has been an issue for some people who just replace the controllers every couple of years, and that's where some of the confusion with pricing and support has come in. They should be clear on the way the controller replacements happen, as it is important to know whether or not you can get a good return on them, because it can be a little confusing.""Pure Storage support could be a little better.""Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included.""The one major gripe I have is that there is no snapshotting enabled by default on the SAN.""I would rate this solution an eight. There's always room for improvement, nobody is perfect to get a ten out of ten. They do what they do well. It's not cheap but we it's for uses that we needed.""The price of this solution could be improved."

More Pure Storage FlashArray Cons →

"XtremIO is coming to its end of life.""We've encountered challenges in integrating other products with Dell Xtremio, as it tends to be more vendor-locked. This means we can't easily explore other solutions that might work alongside Dell.""I believe having more replication options comparatively to VMAX (other than RecoverPoint) would be great.""Management: At the time, there was no snapshot scheduler, so I had to write XSnapCourier to address it. The sad thing is that even after the newest release, which includes a native scheduler, most customers using XSnapCourier chose to stick with it due to a more feature-rich experience.""The management should be improved and the GUI interface could be better and easier.""It needs a way to determine the deduplication of each LUN and what the impact would be if we were to move data from one LUN to another.""They can improve the product by providing an HTML5-based interface instead of the Java GUI based application.""I would like to see the ease of deployment and built-in Metro clustering."

More Dell XtremIO Cons →

"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 Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series was very hard to configure. Installation of the product was very hard. These are its areas for improvement.""The solution should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements.""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.""The solution needs a simpler licensing theme around the DM series. The problem is if you only need one of the features, you still have to buy the whole thing. The licensing needs to be more granular or flexible so you have the option to only license FlexCone or Inline Compression features.""This is an expensive solution.""I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five.""Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
  • "There is always room for negotiation."
  • "The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
  • "It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
  • "For pricing, you have to take into account their performance on deduplication and compression in a $/GB comparison."
  • "We have seen a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO)."
  • "It is a cheaper solution."
  • "Pure Storage is all-flash, so this sometimes tends to make it a bit more expensive in the beginning."
  • More Pure Storage FlashArray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing and licensing are in line with other products from other manufacturers. You get what you pay for."
  • "This is the best flash array on the market for high-end workloads, so expect to pay for that. But the support subscription cost is fixed for seven years, which made it easier for us to plan on the maintenance costs."
  • "It's not cheap, but it absolutely gets the job done. I don't have any real comment regarding licensing specifically."
  • "It is great when a product can deliver high-end performance capabilities while offering a very competitive price point."
  • "XtremIO is pretty straightforward about pricing. However, you need to look at your data so you can estimate, with the advice of DEL EMC, what data reduction ratio you will reach. In our case, a 3:1 reduction ration gave us a positive case compared to other storage arrays."
  • "Don’t buy this array. You’re paying for loads of magic beans, since it’s mediocre at best for a platform in a rapidly growing field. Look instead at Pure Storage or something with variable block deduplication. You’ll end up spending less and getting a better product with actual support."
  • "It is costly but worth it."
  • "With some workloads that benefit from compression and deduplication, costs are actually better than some tier 2 subsystems (while latency remains <1ms)."
  • More Dell XtremIO Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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 of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."
  • "The solution is highly-priced."
  • More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
    768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. To that end, I've written a few posts already. In 2015, though, the HP giant began to rouse and challenge the mainstream status quo with its 3PAR offering. Quantifying 3PAR's platform is different from XtremIO and Pure, though, as it can seem amorphous given the many ways it can be quoted. Are you asking for all flash? 3PAR will give you that and lay claim to the best-of-breed title. Oh, but you want some mass storage akin to archival or virtual tape, too? 3PAR changes jerseys and shouts, "I'm it!" Is it, though? Let's put 3PAR against XtremIO and see how they measure up! Define the Conversation  The hard part about these comparisons and competitive analyses is that we aren't talking about products of the same species or specialization. I struggle to put it properly, but consider it this way. In pre-AFA days (the age of traditional spinners like NetApp FAS3040, EMC CLARiiON or VNX, and even last-gen 3PAR), the contest was like pitting a Toyota Camry against a Nissan Altima. They did most of the same things with minor strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Talking about XtremIO versus 3PAR 74xx is more of a discussion about construction-grade, heavy-duty cranes versus massive earth movers. They are in the… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure… more »
    Top Answer:We consume less physical storage because of the solution’s deduplication and compression.
    Top Answer:We have customers who use a three-year or five-year license. We also have customers who use Evergreen.
    Top Answer:The feature I like most about Dell Xtremio is its hardware quality compared to other vendors. It's clear they're… more »
    Top Answer:The license for XtremIO is in the box, so you don't have to buy anything.
    Top Answer:Dell XtremIO needs to provide better performance to keep up with new products.
    Top Answer:The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload.
    Top Answer:The solution is highly-priced. I rate the pricing a six or seven out of ten.
    Top Answer:A lot of customers do not need all the features in the solution. However, we can only buy the solution as a bundle with… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Dell EMC XtremIO Flash, Dell EMC XtremIO X2, XtremIO, XtremIO X2
    ThinkSystem DM Series
    Learn More
    Overview

    Pure Storage FlashArray is the world’s first enterprise-class storage array that runs exclusively on the nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for memory access and storage. It represents a totally state-of-the-art type of storage technology. It offers users shared accelerated storage that delivers cutting-edge features in the realms of performance, simplicity, and consolidation. Pure Storage is fresh and modern today and will be for the next decade. Without forklift upgrades or planned downtime, Pure Storage takes the work out of storage ownership and delivers unprecedented customer satisfaction.

    Pure Storage FlashArray is built with simplicity and reliability in mind. The solution can be implemented and optimized in hours, as opposed to other similar solutions that can take days. It has no moving parts, which removes areas where it could potentially be vulnerable to suffering errors. It is highly stable and gives users the ability to manage system shutdowns in a way that  prevents data loss.

    Benefits of Pure Storage FlashArray

    Some of the benefits of using Pure Storage FlashArray include:

    • A much higher level of speed than similar pieces of technology. Pure Storage FlashArray maximizes the speed at which data can be transferred while at the same time minimizing system latencies that might slow the transfer down. Additionally, it offers users quick memory read and data access speeds.

    • A higher bang for your buck in terms of the storage capabilities you get for the money you pay. They are smaller in size than more standard storage technologies, but they offer flash memory, which enables users to store larger amounts of data than the current standard.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Pure Storage FlashArray is a highly effective piece of storage technology which stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its overall robustness and the value that it offers by way of its reliability and ease of use. It provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with this solution. Pure Storage FlashArray’s reliability and ease of use make it a highly valuable solution. 

    PeerSpot user Prabakaran K., a technical consultant at Injazat Data Systems, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."

    PeerSpot user Jason D., a cloud solutions architect at a tech services company, notes three features that make this solution valuable when he writes, "We've had different types of storage, and three things of this solution are valuable. The first one is its outstanding performance. The second one is its stability. In the about three years that we've had it, we've had component failures, but we never had a service interruption or any data loss. The third one, which is really critical, is that it is super easy to use in terms of provisioning, storage, and managing the arrays. I'm able to maintain a multi-site environment with a couple of dozen arrays with a single mid-level storage admin."

    Bring all-flash, scale-out storage to your enterprise applications with EMC XtremIO. Purpose-built for flash, XtremIO storage arrays are amazingly fast. Delivering high IOPS at less than 1 millisecond latency is just the start. EMC XtremIO helps you harness the power of flash storage by building in innovations like content-based data placement and dual-stage metadata.

    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.

    Sample Customers
    Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
    Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization31%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Healthcare Company14%
    Insurance Company11%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise40%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise68%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business62%
    Midsize Enterprise8%
    Large Enterprise31%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise48%
    Buyer's Guide
    Dell XtremIO vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XtremIO vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Dell XtremIO is ranked 25th in All-Flash Storage with 48 reviews while Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is ranked 21st in All-Flash Storage with 10 reviews. Dell XtremIO is rated 7.6, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is rated 7.4. The top reviewer of Dell XtremIO writes "Suitable for high IOPS and helps get backup in ten minutes ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series writes "Simple deployment, stores data well, but missing features". Dell XtremIO is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell Unity XT, NetApp AFF and INFINIDAT InfiniBox, whereas Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is most compared with NetApp AFF, Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore and NetApp FAS Series. See our Dell XtremIO vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report.

    See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

    We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.