Dell PowerMax vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM 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 8.9, while Lenovo is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 4.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Dell Technologies 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 May 18, 2025

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and Dell PowerMax compete in the storage solutions market. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series appears to have an advantage in terms of support and pricing, while Dell PowerMax excels with its advanced features despite higher costs.

Features: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers flexible scalability, integrated storage management, and cloud tiering options that enhance data operations. Meanwhile, Dell PowerMax provides outstanding storage efficiency, advanced analytics capabilities, and superior NVMe technology, supporting a wide range of workloads with improved performance and latency.

Room for Improvement: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve its data deduplication and encryption features, enhance user interface intuitiveness, and expand cloud integration capabilities. For Dell PowerMax, increased simplicity in initial deployment, improved support documentation, and better cost management for small and medium-sized enterprises could be prioritized to enhance accessibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series provides a straightforward deployment model with proactive support services, aiding rapid implementation. Dell PowerMax is more complex due to its advanced configurations but offers a comprehensive range of service options for custom deployments, which is beneficial for diverse enterprise needs.

Pricing and ROI: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is known for a cost-effective setup with quicker ROI, attracting businesses mindful of initial costs. On the other hand, Dell PowerMax, despite its higher setup expenses, offers substantial long-term value through innovative technology, appealing to organizations focused on high performance and cutting-edge solutions.

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

1.0

Organizations reduced costs and improved performance with Pure FlashArray X NVMe, achieving quick ROI and efficient resource management.

Sentiment score

8.2

Dell PowerMax delivers cost savings, enhanced efficiency, increased uptime, and improved performance, leading to high user satisfaction and ROI.

Sentiment score

2.8

Customers achieved cost savings and improved efficiency with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, benefiting from better data management and scalable solutions.

By opting for the gold subscription every three years, you get a free upgrade to the latest controller release.

SajithEruvangai

IT System Specialist - Operations & Infrastructure at Daman

If you wait more than seven years to buy another one, you get a return on your investment.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

During a DCDR setup and migration from VMAX to Dell PowerMax, what was planned as a two-day downtime was completed in just three to four hours.

Jasdevjuneja

Works

The performance metrics or benchmarks I use to measure success with Dell PowerMax include uptime as well as our response times on our platforms, both of which are exactly where we want them to be, which is five nines and as fast as possible.

reviewer2706717

Senior Manager, Disaster Recovery, Storage & UNIX Systems at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

My client has seen significant ROI since the install, and when you don't go down, that's an ROI in and of itself.

Rocco Guerriero

Chief Executive Officer at Contour Data Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.1

Pure FlashArray X NVMe's technical support is praised for responsiveness, despite occasional follow-up issues, earning high customer satisfaction.

Sentiment score

8.4

Dell PowerMax's customer service is highly rated for promptness and knowledge, despite some issues with SLA and language barriers.

Sentiment score

4.9

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series customer service experiences are mixed, with some praising it and others citing poor support.

We also had one outage where a controller of one of the products had failed and had to be replaced on-site.

reviewer943512

System and Network administrator at Vodafone

Customers always have their issues resolved promptly.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Pure has good storage.

Gokhan Dikmen

Vice President of product at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

I would rate Dell PowerMax support as a ten, as I have never had an issue with Dell support as it relates to this product.

Rocco Guerriero

Chief Executive Officer at Contour Data Solutions

Dell support for Dell PowerMax is exceptional, rating a perfect 10 out of 10.

Jasdevjuneja

Works

I evaluate Dell's support for PowerMax as very good, especially regarding their response time as well as their willingness to get ahead of issues.

reviewer2706717

Senior Manager, Disaster Recovery, Storage & UNIX Systems at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers scalable storage with low latency, easy upgrades, though capacity customization and high costs are noted.

Sentiment score

7.7

Dell PowerMax provides scalable, efficient performance with NVMe, valued for enterprise use despite some cost and scaling speed concerns.

Sentiment score

6.4

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is highly scalable for medium to large enterprises, though costs and connections can limit expansion.

It is highly scalable.

Joerg Utesch

Sales Director at systemzwo group

It is suitable for both medium-sized and enterprise businesses.

Jaka Demšar

VAD PLSM Storage - Slovenia & Croatia at ASBIS

It hasn't broken down anytime in the last six to seven years, despite hurricanes, earthquakes, and power outages.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

Scalability is not an issue.

reviewer2706753

Senior System Engineer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Dell PowerMax is good for enterprises, and it also depends on how much workload you're going to bring in on Dell PowerMax in terms of performance and how many users are going to use the database you're hosting.

MayankChauhan

Lead Consultant - Cloud & Infrastructure Services at Infosys

Volumes can be defined to grow to any level without impacting overall performance.

Jasdevjuneja

Works

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is scalable, and I would rate its scalability as a seven out of ten.

Augustine Gracious

Service manager at Crescent Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Pure Storage offers exceptional stability and reliability with outstanding support, consistently achieving high user ratings for performance and service.

Sentiment score

8.7

Dell PowerMax is highly rated for reliability, performance, and stability, with quick support for occasional issues.

Sentiment score

5.5

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is generally stable and reliable, though some users report occasional failures and resilience issues.

During the eight years, there have been no problems such as hardware failure or stopping.

Gokhan Dikmen

Vice President of product at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I would rate the stability of the solution as a ten out of ten.

SajithEruvangai

IT System Specialist - Operations & Infrastructure at Daman

I would rate the stability of the product at seven out of ten.

Gary Cheung

Project Manager at a government with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

These patches can be applied on the fly without requiring software upgrades or system downtime.

Jasdevjuneja

Works

I would rate it nine out of ten since there are no required downtimes, even during firmware upgrades.

Moin-Shah

System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

There has been no downtime with Dell PowerMax; it's been extremely reliable, easy to manage, easy to upgrade, and trustworthy as we've upgraded over the years from one version to another.

Rocco Guerriero

Chief Executive Officer at Contour Data Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report

If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure.

Augustine Gracious

Service manager at Crescent Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report

Room For Improvement

Pure FlashArray X requires cost-effective improvements in UI, integration, cloud features, multitenancy, analytics, backup, AI, and scalability.

Dell PowerMax needs improvements in deduplication, UI, cloud integration, cost efficiency, AI, security, and system setup.

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series needs licensing flexibility, enhanced features, better service, and improved pricing and management.

We would appreciate a built-in transparent failover in the next release to eliminate the need for a separate metro cluster.

Joerg Utesch

Sales Director at systemzwo group

I'm eagerly anticipating the roadmap's promise of introducing multiple controllers, which could significantly boost scalability and resilience.

SajithEruvangai

IT System Specialist - Operations & Infrastructure at Daman

We mostly rely on long-term releases. We don't need the most up-to-date features, but we need a reliable environment.

reviewer943512

System and Network administrator at Vodafone

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

Compared to competitors such as NetApp, which integrates with public cloud hyperscalers (GCP, Azure, AWS), Dell PowerMax lacks in this aspect.

Jasdevjuneja

Works

Dell can assist by providing plug-and-play integrated templates that allow customers to drag, drop, modify, and connect with any target system for generating snapshots without logging into the storage directly.

Moin-Shah

System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dell PowerMax NVMe is very reliable storage and cannot experience downtime.

Kazi Amranul Houqe

First Assistant Vice President (FAVP) & Unit Head of Server & Storage Management Unit at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report

Many customers have lost data while configuring it, indicating a need for improvement.

Augustine Gracious

Service manager at Crescent Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers see Pure FlashArray X NVMe as a justified premium investment due to performance and comprehensive licensing.

Dell PowerMax is costly yet competitive, appreciated for total ownership value, offering various pricing models and potential savings.

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers competitive pricing comparable to Dell and HPE but with complex cost calculations and optional features.

While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits.

Enes SUZER

Manager, System Infrastructure & Security at Organik Kimya San. ve Tic. A.S.

The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

I would give it a nine out of ten in terms of costliness.

SajithEruvangai

IT System Specialist - Operations & Infrastructure at Daman

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

The higher cost compared to other vendors is justified by additional features, vendor-managed upgrades, and superior support services.

Jasdevjuneja

Works

It is the best choice for large projects in terms of price and features compared to midrange solutions.

Gianpaolo-Mazzola

Presales Engineer at Project Informatica srl

The price is starting from $500,000.

Mohamed Abdel Salam

Senior Sells at Enterprise Sigma Technology

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report

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

Augustine Gracious

Service manager at Crescent Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report

Valuable Features

Pure FlashArray X NVMe offers exceptional performance, reliability, scalability, and seamless VMware integration, enhancing workload efficiency and user experience.

Dell PowerMax offers advanced performance, security, and efficiency through NVMe, data reduction, and seamless integration, supporting diverse workloads.

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is praised for FlexClone, cloud tiering, data efficiency, and ONTAP features, offering superior service.

Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator.

Gokhan Dikmen

Vice President of product at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

The platform's robust features include excellent sustainability tracking, and a comprehensive dashboard offering insights into IOPS, bandwidth, performance, and virtual activities.

SajithEruvangai

IT System Specialist - Operations & Infrastructure at Daman

Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen.

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

For more quotes and insights, download the Pure FlashArray X NVMe report

NVMe provides additional fast cache, similar to random access memory (RAM), which improves overall system performance and read/write experience for users.

Jasdevjuneja

Works

Dell PowerMax NVMe is very supportive of our operational growth since we require daily performance from our core banking systems and need to facilitate data movement efficiently.

Moin-Shah

System and Storage Admin at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The key benefits of using Dell PowerMax, quantified in terms of saved hours and saved costs, is having one single platform that provides functionality to all of our internal customers.

reviewer2706717

Senior Manager, Disaster Recovery, Storage & UNIX Systems at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell PowerMax report

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

Augustine Gracious

Service manager at Crescent Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report

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 Dell PowerMax is 4.2%, up from 3.9% 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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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…

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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'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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

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

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 25% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 12% of the time

Dell VMAX All Flash vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs Dell PowerMax

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerMax 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

Dell PowerMax

August 2025

Download Dell PowerMax 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

Dell PowerMax NVMe, Dell EMC PowerMax, PowerMax

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

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

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

Rackspace, Open Line

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerMax vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

July 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerMax vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

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