Dell PowerMax vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series comparison

Dell Technologies and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8, while Lenovo is ranked #26 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 4.0% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and Dell PowerMax are enterprise storage solutions competing to enhance data management capabilities. Lenovo ThinkSystem offers better value for pricing and support, while Dell PowerMax is preferred for superior features and perceived value.

Features: Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series provides cost-effective performance with notable storage efficiency, scalability, and easy management interface. Dell PowerMax offers advanced data services, high-end performance with real-time machine learning, and NVMe-based storage for optimal operations.

Room for Improvement: Lenovo ThinkSystem could enhance advanced features, increase the number of integration options, and further improve scalability. Dell PowerMax could simplify user interface elements, reduce complexity in setup, and offer more budget-friendly solutions for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is known for its straightforward deployment process and satisfactory customer service. Dell PowerMax, despite a more complex deployment process, is valued for comprehensive support and enhancing long-term satisfaction through its extensive support network.

Pricing and ROI: Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is budget-friendly, providing a quick ROI for businesses prioritizing low-cost solutions. In contrast, Dell PowerMax, with higher initial costs, offers substantial ROI through advanced features and performance, making it appealing for organizations needing extensive data capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerMax vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

June 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 June 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerMax is 4.0%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.5%, down from 2.7% 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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MayankChauhan

Lead Consultant - Cloud & Infrastructure Services at Infosys

Delivers essential support and performance for intensive operations in real-time environments

Our infrastructure is spread across the private as well as a public cloud. Our requirement was that the IOPS latency should not be more than one millisecond. If anything goes beyond one millisecond, it's a problem for us. We wanted a system that could handle the transactions and meet our latency requirements. There are performance benefits for sure. The amount of deduplication and compression offered by Dell PowerMax is quite good, especially with databases. Dell PowerMax delivers optimum performance and reliable support, integral for handling failures and ensuring operational continuity. The performance capacity optimization and support we receive from Dell are also valuable.

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Gastone Canali

IT Consultant at Effegibi

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…

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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

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

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

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."

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

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The solution's most valuable feature is the data reduction ratio."

"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The most important feature or function in Dell PowerMax is the capacity to deliver the required IOPS."

"The high availability that other systems don't have. In other systems, there is an owner in the storage processes. But for PowerMAX, there is no owner. All the process storage is passed to all nodes without ownership. So, there is no response feature in the storage in PowerMax. In the other systems, there is a response, which is a very nice feature. No systems have such a feature."

"We use ESRS for our call-home, and a lot of times, Dell EMC will respond to the issue before we even know it."

"It's faster and more resilient."

"We are able to provide storage at the right service levels without overmanaging it."

"The smaller footprint of the device has been really nice. We have gone from eight bays to one bay. Having one floor tile in our data center has been pretty awesome. A lot less power and HVAC cooling is being consumed."

More Dell PowerMax pros

"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."

"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."

"The solution is very easy to set up."

"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."

"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."

"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 highly reliable, especially for block-level storage. It is stable, with minimal downtime and no issues beyond user errors."

"Its initial setup process is easy."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pros

Cons

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"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."

"It is on the expensive side."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The initial setup could be easier."

"We are very interested in NVMe over Fibre Channel, which I understand is on the horizon. We would like to see that come to fruition."

"Dell PowerMax or Symmetrix is a block-level storage and unified storage, supporting both NAS and SAN. One area for improvement would be integration with public cloud services."

"The disadvantage of PowerMax is its cost. It is expensive, mainly due to pricing."

"They should work with the storage engineers to better tweak the management tools to give them improved visibility into their data."

"The tool needs to improve its performance. Today's applications are demanding a response rate of one millisecond or below. The product should also look into AI integration."

"Dell PowerMax NVMe needs to increase storage and improve scalability."

"We brought up this question to the implementation engineer. We were comparing use cases where a customer is using RecoverPoint, then goes to PowerMax. In our previous setup with XtremIO, we were using RecpverPoint and keeping snapshots for 30 days, every few seconds. With PowerMax, I requested this for every 15 minutes, keeping it for a week. The engineer's answer was, "There will be too many snapshots. It might slow down the system." This is specifically for the use cases where there is RecoverPoint. While PowerMax works with RecoverPoint, and you can use it, there should be some way where you can have even more snapshots and not to worry about performance and system cache."

More Dell PowerMax cons

"The product could support advanced software integrations."

"The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved."

"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."

"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."

"Its performance could be faster."

"It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."

"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."

"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"The product is expensive."

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

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price is okay."

"In terms of price-performance, it beat out other competitors when we were taking a look and comparing it to the market. That was one of the biggest driving points for us."

"I rate Dell PowerMax NVMe a five out of ten for pricing."

"The cost has room for improvement."

"The price is starting from $500,000."

"It is high-end storage and it is a bit expensive, but it is doing what it is meant for: running business-critical applications or latency-sensitive applications..."

"From reclaiming data center space which is so tightly constrained these days, it will pay for itself in a short amount of time, which is fantastic. Anything we can do to get more out of our current physical data center space helps us a ton, and PowerMax has helped enable that."

"Our costs for the product are three million."

More Dell PowerMax pricing and cost advice

"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."

"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."

"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."

"It is an expensive solution."

"We have a five-year contract for providing support."

"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."

"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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series 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

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

University

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.

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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 ...

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What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?

Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?

First, it's an enterprise storage solution. This is very important for us. Another important feature is replication.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe?

When comparing Dell PowerMax NVMe with other vendors, such as IBM enterprise solutions, the price is relatively higher.

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What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The solution's initial setup process is easy.

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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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 29% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 27% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 13% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell PowerMax Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 30% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 13% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 9% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

June 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

June 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Also Known As

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

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

ThinkSystem DE 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

Dell PowerMax offers robust performance, reliability, and efficient data handling. It is recognized for its compression, deduplication, and NVMe technology, significantly benefiting data centers with its advanced replication and uptime.

PowerMax is equipped to handle mission-critical applications, providing impressive performance metrics with low latency and high IOPS capacity. Its CloudIQ and Unisphere interfaces enhance manageability, while REST API support simplifies storage management. Users in sectors like healthcare, finance, and telecommunications leverage its capabilities for database management, high-transaction block storage, and disaster recovery. However, opportunities for improving deduplication efficiency, interface complexity, and automation remain.

What are the key features of Dell PowerMax?

Data Reduction: Combines compression and deduplication for efficient storage use.
NVMe Technology: Enables swift data handling with high throughput.
CloudIQ and Unisphere: Streamlines manageability and control.
REST API Support: Simplifies integration with management tools.
High Availability: Ensures consistent uptime across platforms.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Performance Metrics: Look for low latency and high IOPS as indicators.
Reliability: Consistent operations with minimal interruptions.
Manageability: Efficient control over storage environments.
Cost Efficiency: Note any potential savings in data processing and storage.

Industries utilize Dell PowerMax to support diverse environments like VMware, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. It serves multiple sectors such as healthcare, finance, and government, aiding in data storage consolidation, disaster recovery, and high-availability hosting for critical systems and applications.

Dell Technologies

The DE All-Flash Series delivers the performance of more than 2,000 15k rpm HDDs, yet requires only 2% of the rack space, power, and cooling. Because it consumes 98% less space and power, DE Series can significantly improve the overall efficiency of your IT operations while continuing to meet your performance requirements.

Lenovo

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

June 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

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