Dell Unity XT vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series comparison

Dell Technologies and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.6, while Lenovo is ranked #21 with an average rating of 10.0. Dell Technologies holds a 5.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Dell Unity XT and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are two competing storage solutions. Dell Unity XT is preferred for its robust software capabilities, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is appreciated for its hardware reliability and scalable performance.

Features: Dell Unity XT users value its comprehensive data management features, strong integration with cloud services, and robust software functionalities. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is praised for its high throughput, effective data protection mechanisms, and scalable performance.

Room for Improvement: Dell Unity XT users suggest improvements in hardware upgrade processes, need for faster support responses, and better hardware reliability. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series feedback indicates a demand for more intuitive monitoring tools, better documentation, and improved user guidance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell Unity XT is highlighted for its relatively straightforward deployment, but has mixed reviews regarding customer service efficiency. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is recognized for quick and flexible deployment options, receiving positive feedback for responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Dell Unity XT is perceived as costly, but users believe it offers good long-term ROI due to its comprehensive feature set. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is favored for its competitive pricing and immediate performance benefits, delivering a quicker ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

February 2026

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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 February 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Unity XT is 5.7%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell Unity XT	5.7%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.5%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series	2.0%
Other	90.8%

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

Deepak Kannan

Sales Account Manager - BFSI Sector at Frontier Business systems

Customer needs are addressed effectively with collaborative sales and service support

Recently, customers have been asking for a cloud tiering option in storages. Some Dell storages do not have cloud tiering, which is an optional commercial feature. NetApp's FSA model 2750 comes with an inbuilt cloud tiering option. In the future, if Dell storages include this option, especially for Unity, it would help us target SME or medium enterprises for quicker closures and support the sales team.

Read full review

Giorgio Pozzi

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…

Read full review

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."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

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

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"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."

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

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"It will certainly help us scale bigger. If I look at the footprint, the VNX's was multi-rack. Now, all of a sudden, we're only at a portion of a rack. And, obviously, if we can scale within the same rack - we can certainly see that by the number of hard drives we've had to put in - we can scale a lot more easily."

"The most valuable feature is that the solution is a hybrid system, so you can do both block and file storage."

"The ease of management and “user-friendly” management environment (GUI)."

"One of the things that I like the most about it is how they have changed the Unisphere GUI, and how it is now HTML5. It is so easy to use. Also, the array itself is so simple, easy to set up and easy to use, but it still has that great Dell EMC technology behind it."

"It is easy to manage overall. It is all web-based. It has a an easy, nice dashboard. I receive emails if there are issues. When there are any updates, I receive emails. I can either do them on my own, but normally I schedule them with Dell EMC and they remote in, then it's done."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to provision storage from the CLI, versus having to go in and use the GUI every time. I can just script it out and it will create what I need. That makes it super-easy to manage. Also, for us, it's a set-and-forget. Once we provisioned it out, we haven't had to mess with it."

"The technical support is very professional and provides quick responses."

"The All-Flash models are pretty fast for the vast majority of our remote workloads."

More Dell Unity XT pros

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"

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

"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."

"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."

"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."

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

"We have been working with the solution for around a year and so far it has shown itself to be stable."

"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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pros

Cons

"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."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

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

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

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

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Include cloud-based replication for blocks"

"I called about an issue where I couldn't get VVOLs registered. It turns out it is a bug in the code and that there is no information about when it will be fixed. It's just not going to work. I was a little miffed about that."

"Sometimes the response time is higher than expected due to a lack of issues."

"The product’s pricing should be improved."

"We are running VMware, and with the VNXe it was possible to restore. We're using Veeam for VMware backups and with the predecessor, it was possible to mount a backup or restore a backup from a storage snapshot. With the Unity 300, this is not possible."

"It would be nice to have been able to easily move off our old VNX system to this system. The process is very manual."

"We would like an AI feature that would protect the backup and minimize the consumed space so we can maintain the quality of the backup. This would help us minimize our IT cost in terms of the backup procedures."

"I have a problem because between the Unity XT and the PowerMax, sometimes we need another product between these two products. There could be better integrated and the capacity of the size could be larger."

More Dell Unity XT cons

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

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

"The difficult part comes when dealing with the host. You have to enable multi-pathing and other aspects that are needed for proper configuration. I don't know if there is room for a more hyper-conversion structure to work with, but this would be easier."

"The solution could be more scalable, although it suits our present needs."

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

"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."

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

"The product could support advanced software integrations."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

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

"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."

"The product is expensive."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price of Dell EMC Unity XT is higher compared to other solutions. The price should be less expensive."

"This product is cheaper than the EMC VNX solution. It is good for small businesses."

"One of the most valuable features is its cost. It was inexpensive compared to other arrays that we were looking at."

"The solution is very expensive."

"Our big return of investment is the ability to scale and not add FTE counts nor extra administration."

"We integrated it with VMware vSphere at no additional cost. As we moved into VMware vSphere, this is what we bought to go with it for our storage performance."

"There is not a license required for the use of the solution. We purchased a maintenance contract."

"This solution is a good price for what you get."

More Dell Unity XT pricing and cost advice

"It is an expensive solution."

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

"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."

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

"The solution's price could be better."

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

"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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	49
Large Enterprise	94

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3

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 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...

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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...

See all answers

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...

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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

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 9% of the time

TrueNAS X-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 33% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Dell Unity XT

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell Unity XT Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 22% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 9% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 8% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 5% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT

February 2026

Download Dell Unity XT product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

February 2026

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Also Known As

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

EMC Unity, Dell EMC Unity

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 EMC Unity XT is one of the best all-flash storage arrays on the market today. Dell EMC Unity XT arrays are designed for performance, optimized for efficiency, and built for a multi-cloud world. In addition, they support digital transformation, enabling businesses to reach the full potential of their data capital quickly and easily. Dell EMC Unity’s All-Flash and Hybrid Flash storage platforms provide the performance, efficiency, enterprise-class software, and virtualization integrations required for running a wide range of virtualized applications.

Dell EMC Unity XT Features

Dell EMC Unity XT has many valuable key features, including:

Unified storage flexibility: With Dell EMC Unity XT you can consolidate separate storage platforms into a single Unity XT unified storage system via a simple and intuitive (HTML5) management GUI that also connects you to CloudIQ.
All-inclusive data protection: Dell EMC Unity XT offers a reliable way to protect application data with all-inclusive data protection services, including snapshots, data-at-rest drive encryption, replication, thin clones, and dynamic pools.
Software-defined solutions: Dell EMC Unity XT provides software-defined storage and HA for on-prem and in the cloud solutions.
Multi-cloud alignment: With Dell EMC Unity XT you have the ability to build and manage an effective data-first multi-cloud strategy. It allows you to consolidate public and private cloud resources that align with your business goals.
Metro node: This feature enables automated business continuity with zero RPO and RTO. It also provides greater flexibility through multi-platform support and replication to any array and has zero performance impact on the storage array.
Scalable file system: Dell EMC Unity XT is built with a robust 256TBu file system. The UFS64 file system includes up to 256 independent VMDK clones, 16 thin clones, space efficient snapshots with a simple space reclaim and low IO impact, file system shrink that can reclaim free blocks, simplified Quotas for User, and much more.
DevOps integrations: Dell EMC Unity XT supports the Container Storage Interface (CSI) plugin to run Kubernetes workloads.

Dell EMC Unity XT Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Dell EMC Unity XT include:

High-speed data access
Low latency
Dual-active controller architecture
Multi-cloud
Intuitive user interface
Cost efficient
Solid performance

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Dell EMC Unity XT users.

A Systems Engineering Manager at a manufacturing company says, "It is definitely one of the most robust, solid, well-performing products that I have dealt with. It is set it and forget it, which is pretty amazing." He also mentions, “We can do both block and file storage on one unit without purchasing a separate device.”

Peter S., Senior Technical Specialist at a healthcare company, states, “The most valuable feature is reliability. At the end of the day, it just runs. This solution is easy to work with and easy to maintain.”

PeerSpot user Melvin T., Senior Systems Engineer at Prosperity Bank, explains that the solution is “easy to use and we can add LUNs or space without interruption to end-users. We're able to access it from just about anywhere, as long as we have access to a browser. That feature is really neat because sometimes we will go to a different data center or a different site, and if we need to access it to see a LUN or to see any type of storage, we can do that. That's one of the big takeaways with Unity."

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

Draper, Rio Grande Pacific, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

February 2026

Free Report: Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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