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Dell Unity XT vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
213
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell Unity XT
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.9%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Unity XT is 5.9%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 1.7%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.9%
Dell Unity XT5.9%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series1.7%
Other84.5%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
NR
TSG Manager at Navigator Systems
Ease of implementation and robust performance enhance multi-OEM support experience
We are limited only to hardware replacement, not administration tasks. We work on AMC products through Annual Maintenance Contracts. We provide support up to the 680 model. The XT680F is a newer model, and we support from 380F to 680F. The FlashSystem 8000 series is all-flash, and there is also a 5000 series flash model. We can compare IBM DS series, including the 8000 series for recommendations. For NetApp, we can recommend the FAS 8000 series.
GP
System Administrator at PORTGUARDIAN.COM SRL
Performance and cost-effectiveness are maximized with seamless setup and significant ROI
I use Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series to replace the old storage in our infrastructure. Additionally, I use it in customer infrastructures to migrate from the old storage to the new one On the M storage, I find the best features to be deduplication and compression. On the DE storage, the most…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Because of the encryption, we have different storage and the encryption can go over both."
"Overall, Pure Storage FlashArray has never let us down in front of customers so far."
"Pure Storage is an amazing solution."
"The sales and executive support have been outstanding compared to the rest of the market... My upgrade paths have been simple on the Pure... It's a lot simpler to implement and a lot simpler to manage."
"The simplicity of it. The performance is good, but the simplicity is the best thing. Storage management is quite complex, but Pure Storage is easy to manage."
"The predictive performance analytics is a very good feature, as our system is performing better than before."
"It helps us maintain uptime much better than other solutions we've used in the past, and the support is extremely quick and responsive."
"Pure gives us better compression, it's easier to manage, a lot less hands-on, and the biggest selling point for me was the replacement of the hardware, the controllers, without any major expense to the clinic."
"If you're looking at a flash-based system, one that you want to work and not to have to play around with it - to be sure it's working all the time - Unity is definitely a step in the right direction for any company, going forward."
"Overall this solution provides exactly what we needed, which is fiber channel block storage in the cloud."
"We hear from our customers that it is stable."
"Compared to our old platform, everything is more tightly integrated; I don't have to go to different sections to do something, and a lot of it is wizard-driven, so it's an easy to use system."
"The most valuable feature of Dell Unity XT is data duplication. Additionally, the management interface is simple, and is not a hassle using it. You don't need too much to learn or to be familiarized with it."
"It is a platform that we have standardized on for remote sites which enables us to have engineers and admins who are trained on and knowledgeable about the platform across the board, enabling them to support those sites and allowing us to do more with less."
"All of the IT devices help production time, they make time faster, but this device, in general, is a money maker and makes us a lot of money and is critical to the business."
"As far as cost is concerned, it does great deduplication, and from a storage perspective, we save money being able to dedupe right on the disk."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions, and it's also easy to use."
"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 simple to use"
"My advice to others is that this is a straightforward, detailed documented, and supported solution."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is cost-effective; there is no license, all of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
 

Cons

"In Pure Storage FlashArray, the area with room for improvement is local MFA login."
"The credentials on the iSCSI interface are only available to type in with the Chrome browser, and not with the Firefox browser."
"They could improve the price."
"In the next version of this program, I would like to see increased security, higher encryption, and faster throughput."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"I would like to see data tiering to AWS."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"I would like to see them add Storage Groups, like we have had in Clariions and VNXs."
"The only thing that could improve it would be a price reduction."
"The monitoring capabilities should be improved."
"The pricing is a bit higher than expected, and this is an area where I see room for improvement."
"The monitoring part could be better. With EMC storage systems - or Unity and VPLEX, because I'm using them, for the moment - the monitoring part is very difficult."
"Having used EMC products for more than 15 years, this is the first product in that time that I could find nothing to like."
"The one thing that we would look at would be if they were to expand the file level features, just to give us a balance or a tier between it and Isilon options out there, for unstructured data."
"Dell EMC Unity's competitor, NetApp, has a similar product. However, it has a clustering technology where you can group multiple systems together, then you can move data from one system to another seamlessly."
"The features are limited."
"Its performance could be faster."
"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."
"While it is a reliable product, it could be improved. It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"The product could support advanced software integrations."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"Usually, when a part fails, we have to replace it and it takes a while. It would be better if the part could be available locally here in Kenya so we don't have to wait so long to repair the solution."
"You can not buy a lot of options for these devices. There are a lot of things that it does not do."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is an issue. However, being all-flash, it will always be sort of expensive."
"The price is very reasonable when compared to other solutions."
"When I last looked, the prices were reasonable, and we could get an excellent array for about $60,000."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"It's a good price point and it's a solid product for the price."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"While it comes with a higher price tag, this investment often translates to significant improvements in performance."
"Because of the SSD, it is cheaper because I am not purchasing so many disks."
"What they really like is the easy licensing now - Dell EMC has caught up to a lot of their competitors - based on not having to charge for everything, and they can get everything in one bundle."
"The price in our country is very expensive and some of our customers opt for lower-cost alternatives."
"The product’s pricing should be improved."
"Obtaining a warranty is easy."
"The return on the investment was simply speeding up our entire vSphere stack, which allowed our developers and engineers to get their workloads done faster and simpler. We were experiencing VM snapshot times of 45 minutes to two or three hours, and it shrunk it down to under five minutes."
"This unit is one of the cheapest storage all-flash arrays in the market and it does well for what it is intended. It can be combined for both file and block storage."
"At the end of the day, the licensing cost is key, because every customer has a pain point, that the cost of each piece is high. So if they would bundle everything in a package, that is how the competitors are selling their footprint."
"The only improvement would be a lower cost per unit/disks, however on the whole we are very pleased with this product."
"The solution's price could be better."
"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise147
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise94
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
I saw that you have doubts about what you chose. I have a lot of experience with the constructor, honestly I can reco...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
They’re both great solutions and I’ve used both. EMC is being VERY aggressive on pricing which may be the undoing of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
First of all the decision should be taken looking at similar products in terms of capacity and performance. I will sh...
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.
What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved.
What is your primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
I use Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series to replace the old storage in our infrastructure. Additionally, I use it in custom...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity
ThinkSystem DE Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
890,088 professionals have used our research since 2012.