Dell VMAX All Flash vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

Dell Technologies and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0, while Lenovo is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 0.8% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and Dell VMAX All Flash are high-end storage solutions. Dell VMAX All Flash is seen as the superior product due to its advanced features, making it worth the higher price.

Features: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is praised for high performance, scalability, and integration with cloud services. Dell VMAX All Flash stands out for its superior data reduction capabilities, high speed, and reliability.

Room for Improvement: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series users suggest enhancements in management tools, better update processes, and improved user interface design. Dell VMAX All Flash users highlight the need for cost reduction, improved interoperability, and enhanced scalability options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is noted for straightforward deployment and supportive customer service. Dell VMAX All Flash also has a smooth deployment process but benefits from more proactive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers lower setup costs and faster ROI, making it appealing for budget-conscious buyers. Dell VMAX All Flash, while expensive, delivers higher returns in the long term due to its advanced features.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,114 peers since 2012

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 January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell VMAX All Flash is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.0%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series	2.0%
Dell VMAX All Flash	0.8%
Other	95.8%

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

Arjun Sadsivam

Solution Architect at a agriculture with 10,001+ employees

Performance and interface improve data processing speeds but require complex configuration

The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface. We have seen significant improvements in technology over the last four to five years. The snap feature, along with deduplication, has notably enhanced our data processing speeds. We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution.

Read full review

Augustine Gracious

Service manager at Crescent Technologies

Complicated deployment and poor support persist, affecting overall satisfaction

The deployment process of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is very complicated compared to previous GUI systems. Many customers have lost data while configuring it, indicating a need for improvement. The after-sales service is also very poor. Furthermore, it does not offer basic features like deduplication, and the service is generally considered to be very bad.

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

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

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"The best features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe include the volume snapshot capabilities, which allow us to save most of the storage space by volume snapshots periodically."

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

"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."

"The most valuable features of Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its superior performance compared to other flash tiers, as well as its ease of use, with an intuitive user interface that is simple to deploy and use."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The snapshot feature has been precious for our testing processes, application development, and managing testing environments due to its efficiency and ease of use."

"The most valuable features of VMAX are its performance and GUI interface."

"The ransomware protection feature is housed in a separate unit, specifically addressing the top twenty most critical threats."

"It works very well."

"The product's initial setup phase was good."

"We haven't experienced any outages or core-level issues in the last ten years, making us comfortable with the storage solution."

"We are satisfied with the stability."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well."

"The servers are fast and affordable."

"The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload."

"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."

"The most valuable feature of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its capability to tier to the cloud, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS. Additionally, the integration is good and they are user-friendly."

"The price of this solution is good."

"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM 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."

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

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"Improvements are needed in both partition recovery and scalability."

"There is room for improvement in the centralized administration."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additional engines to address this limitation."

"We encountered some challenges during large data migrations that could be addressed for smoother transitions."

"The configuration part of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."

"The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability."

"This is an expensive solution."

"The licensing model needs to be revisited. It needs to be simplified."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."

"There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve by having a snapshot feature. Additionally, there can be other features added to help restore the data faster."

"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five."

"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 should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

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

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

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"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 tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

"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."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"It is not a cheap product."

"The price falls within the mid-range, neither inexpensive nor high-priced."

"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's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."

"The solution is highly-priced."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

16%

Healthcare Company

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	2

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 do you like most about Dell EMC VMax?

The product's initial setup phase was good.

See all answers

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

The pricing provided by EMC is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC VMax?

The scalability of VMAX is somewhat limited, especially in terms of cache scalability. We've had to procure additiona...

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 18% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerMax vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 63% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 8% of the time

Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs Dell VMAX All Flash

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell VMAX All Flash Competitors

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 32% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 12% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 5% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Dell VMAX All Flash product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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 VMAX All Flash is utilized in hyper-converged solutions like VxRail deployments, critical for Data Domain in backup tasks. It supports multi-site replication, disaster recovery, banking IT operations, and high-performance applications.

Dell VMAX All Flash plays a key role in data-intensive environments due to its robust capabilities in storage, data protection, and high throughput tasks. It is crucial in hyper-converged solutions and VxRail deployments, facilitating multi-site replication and disaster recovery. Its applications span across banking and other critical IT operations requiring high performance. The system's ability to support efficient data compression and provide ransomware protection addresses significant security concerns. Multi-site replication and redundancy safeguard data even during power outages or hardware failures, while the snapshot feature aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What are the key features of Dell VMAX All Flash?

Compression: Efficient data compression capabilities.
Ransomware Protection: Tackles ransomware threats effectively.
Multi-site Replication and Redundancy: Ensures data safety during power outages or hardware issues.
Snapshots: Aids in testing, application development, and environment management.

What benefits should users look for in Dell VMAX All Flash reviews?

Data Protection: Enhanced data security with ransomware protection.
Performance: High throughput for demanding applications.
Reliability: Multi-site replication and redundancy for critical operations continuity.
Support: Adheres to IP strategies with excellent customer support.

Dell VMAX All Flash is critical in industries like banking, where it supports IT operations requiring high performance, and in environments demanding stringent data protection measures. Its role in multi-site replication and disaster recovery makes it invaluable for business continuity and critical data security across sectors.

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

December 2025

Free Report: Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell VMAX All Flash vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell VMAX All Flash 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.