HPE Nimble Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.5, while Lenovo is ranked #21 with an average rating of 10.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.4% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise 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

HPE Nimble Storage and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are prominent storage solutions in the data storage category. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series seems to have the upper hand due to its performance capabilities and flexible configurations.

Features: HPE Nimble Storage offers predictive analytics, efficient data reduction, and seamless integration. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series provides high performance, flexible configuration options, and advanced tiering features.

Room for Improvement: HPE Nimble Storage could enhance scalability, provide more flexible pricing, and improve software interface intuitiveness. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series could improve software interface intuitiveness, provide more comprehensive support documentation, and enhance scalability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Nimble Storage has a straightforward deployment process with positive feedback on customer service responsiveness. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series also has easy deployment but mixed reviews regarding customer service efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Nimble Storage provides a favorable ROI, though its initial setup costs are sometimes seen as high. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series offers good value with competitive initial pricing and satisfactory ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Nimble Storage vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

December 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 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 HPE Nimble Storage is 2.4%, down from 3.1% 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 (%)
HPE Nimble Storage	2.4%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.5%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series	2.0%
Other	94.1%

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

Thomas Watterott

IT Consultant at Autonubil System GmbH

Replication and dashboard improve system integration efficiency

It's a good product, but the implementation with the new systems is done via the cloud dashboard from HPE. I can't activate the system without a cloud connection, which is a bit laggy if I don't have the right firewall settings, making it take longer to implement the storage. It was better with the old systems, where I could install and activate without cloud connectivity.

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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…

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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

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

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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

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

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"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."

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

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"HPE Nimble Storage is very stable and performs well."

"It dynamically understands what data is being stored on it and where to store it, because they have got a flash array at the front, then obviously the standard style of storage at the back."

"Good architecture and produces a lot of IOPS."

"This solution has given us reliability that is evident by the fact that it has been running for five years with virtually no hiccups."

"It has allowed us to upgrade our DMS to the latest version and reuse the older array as the DR storage for VMware SRM."

"The positive aspects of HPE Nimble Storage include very easy cloud management to identify problems, and it also has the capability to forecast performance in the future, which is a benefit for us as a reseller to recommend to customers that have a service contract with us."

"The deduplication and compression capabilities are powerful."

"The fact that you can manage the requirements is one the most valuable features of HPE Nimble Storage. The other is the rapid deployment time."

More HPE Nimble Storage pros

"The solution is very easy to set up."

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

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

"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."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"

"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

"We need better data deduplication."

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

"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."

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

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

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

"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."

"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

"It was a bit expensive."

"The HPE Nimble Storage could have better integration with monitoring and machine learning system information solutions."

"The way the market is going, supporting NVMe storage would be useful as a step up."

"I would like to see greater integration with Microsoft's Hyper-V platform."

"I have problems with the next servicer. For example, I have a new device and it needs to connect to Nimble."

"I would like to have more administrative rights, for example, root-level administrative rights to the underlying OS of the storage array. We want more access to the kind of underlying infrastructure of the storage array rather than relying on support. However, most companies are looking to have more managed solutions which is the opposite direction of what I want."

"They keep talking about doing one-to-many replication. This is what we'd like to see, just to help with data replication."

"Nimble requires its DNS to work in order to interface with VMware vCenter is a little thorn in my eye, but I am being nitpicky here."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

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

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

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

"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."

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

"The product could support advanced software integrations."

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

"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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing ten out of ten."

"Competitive. No licensing. Since everything is included."

"The price has room for improvement."

"The solution’s licensing is on a yearly basis."

"We paid about $80,000 for our permanent site licence."

"If you don't go cheap, it is eventually worth it. However, the initial investment is high."

"From a price/performance perspective, Nimble simply can’t be beat. From a TCO perspective, the stability alone pays for itself."

"We are paying for the licensing yearly."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

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

"The solution's price could be better."

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

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

"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."

"It is an expensive solution."

"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."

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

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

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	47
Midsize Enterprise	42
Large Enterprise	40

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

How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, z...

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Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?

HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...

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What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage?

The solution's predictive analytics is good. It helps to save costs.

See all answers

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 16% 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 10% of the time

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp AFF vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 8% of the time

More HPE Nimble Storage Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 23% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 11% 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 9% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 2% 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

HPE Nimble Storage

January 2026

Download HPE Nimble Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Also Known As

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

Nimble Storage

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

HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective All-Flash Storage Array solution that aims to enable organizations to reliably store and access their data. Organizations across a wide variety of industries trust Nimble Storage to assist them with all of their data storage-based needs. It both tracks all of the IT architecture that an organization uses and protects that architecture from a variety of digital threats.

HPE Nimble Storage Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy HPE Nimble Storage include:

Increased security. Nimble Storage provides organizations with powerful layers of protection. It leverages predictive analytics powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning to keep businesses from suffering harm related to emerging threats. The AI and ML software identifies threats before they can threaten a user’s data.

Reduced costs and increase profits. Businesses that deploy Nimble Storage find that their overhead costs end up being significantly reduced by up to 49%. One of the reasons for this is that Nimble Storage uses a “pay as you go” subscription model which means that users never pay for more storage than they actually need.

Ease of use. Nimble Storage is simple for administrators to utilize. They can install it without any kind of outside assistance. It is also simple for the average administrator to manage without specialized training.

HPE Nimble Storage Features

Artificial intelligence. The backbone of Nimble Storage’s IT infrastructure is its AI software. The HPE InfoSight feature makes it so that administrators don’t need to make guesses when managing their data storage. It offers users suggestions as to what they can do to improve their storage performance.

Scaling. Nimble Storage gives users the ability to scale their data storage so that it appropriately meets their needs. They can both “scale up” or increase the sheer amount of data that they can store at a given time and “scale out” or increase their ability to perform effectively.

Hybrid storage. Nimble Storage has the ability to store data both on the cloud and on-premises so as to meet an organization’s storage requirements. Its multi-cloud feature enables users to seamlessly manage all of their data storage and utilization operations with ease.

Reviews from Real Users

HPE Nimble Storage is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its ease of use and its powerful InfoSight analytics feature.

Andrew B., Head Of Information Technology at Zambia National Building Society, writes, “It's a very easy solution. Whenever I have a question, I find they have already provided a solution for it.”

Prataparao D., Technical Solution's Consultant for HPE Storage Devices at Karvy Innotech, says, “HPE Nimble Storage uses the InfoSight platform and it is useful because we can identify the faults and can analyze the performance. It has many other features. This feature is the best that I have observed from HPE Nimble Storage.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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

Ace Relocation, Atkins Nutritionals, Berkeley Research Group, Canadian International School, City of Hot Springs, Clackamas County, Corona-Norco Unified School District, Ideal Integrations, Linear Technology, P&O Maritime, Retail Apparel Group (RAG), Virtual Radiologic

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

December 2025

Free Report: HPE Nimble Storage vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

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