HPE Nimble Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 with an average rating of 9.5, while Lenovo is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 99% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise 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 Sep 18, 2024

HPE Nimble Storage and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series are leading storage solutions. HPE Nimble Storage has the upper hand in pricing and ease of deployment, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series excels in features and scalability.

Features: HPE Nimble Storage is known for efficient data compression, real-time analytics, and reliable performance. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is recognized for robust performance, flexibility in handling diverse workloads, and versatile features.

Room for Improvement: HPE Nimble Storage needs better scalability options, fewer performance hiccups under heavy loads, and enhanced user interface. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series requires better integration tools, improved documentation, and streamlined support processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Nimble Storage is noted for straightforward deployment and responsive customer support. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series has more complex setup procedures and less reliable support experiences.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Nimble Storage users find initial setup costs reasonable with solid ROI. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, though more expensive initially, provides competitive ROI due to its superior feature set.

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

Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage 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:

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 HPE Nimble Storage is 2.3%, down from 5.1% 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.

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Ajit Pratap Kundan

PreSales Lead- Government & Defense at Accops Systems Pvt Ltd

A tool that offers protection against ransomware and other enterprise-level attacks

HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high, making it one of its downsides. HPE Nimble Storage's cost is very high compared with any HCI solutions, like HPE's SimpliVity, Nutanix, VMware, or Dell VxRail. A person requires a special skill set to operate HPE Nimble Storage because there are hardly any solutions similar to Nimble Storage in the market. The product's support can be made faster and more responsive if HPE trains its partners in such a way that they acquire more expertise on Nimble Storage through the training sessions. HPE Nimble Storage is dependent on only VMware vSphere Hypervisor. In the future, HPE has to make Nimble Storage feasible with other hypervisors like Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix Acropolis, and RHEV, meaning it should be hypervisor agnostic.

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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…

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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

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"The latency is good."

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

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

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

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"HPE Nimble Storage is a very organized and customer-oriented tool."

"This product is very easy to set up."

"The most valuable feature is the NVMe flash storage."

"Scalability is another reason we chose to go with Nimble: upgrading to another storage array. If we need higher capacity or throughput, we can just replace controllers, we don't have to replace or forklift-upgrade the whole chassis."

"InfoSight has identified controller failures or performance issues."

"It's very stable and fast, and I am very happy with the deduplication. It saves a lot of space, which is great."

"I really like the form factor, which is nice and compact and small."

"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 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."

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

"We are satisfied with the stability."

"Scalable and stable storage array."

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

"Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability."

"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."

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

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series pros

Cons

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

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

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

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

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

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

"I want to see the full integration with OneView. I know they have started it, but I haven't had a chance to look at and evaluate it."

"We are doing a hybrid and are moving some machines to Microsoft Azure to run in hybrid mode. We are checking the availability of extra software-defined storage so that we can configure it."

"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."

"We would like there to be more enhanced features."

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

"The stability can be improved."

"In the future, I would like to see a lower-end model that has Peer Persistence functionality."

More HPE Nimble Storage cons

"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."

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

"This is an expensive solution."

"The tool's pricing is high."

"Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed."

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

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

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

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The solution is a little pricey compared to others on the market."

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

"The price has room for improvement."

"I rate HPE Nimble Storage's pricing an eight out of ten. It can be expensive, especially when considering console ports and renewals."

"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."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable for the features that it provides."

"We pay a one-time fee for terabyte licenses, and the support is paid yearly."

"We are paying for the licensing yearly."

More HPE Nimble Storage pricing and cost advice

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

"The solution is highly-priced."

"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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.

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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...

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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 ...

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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.

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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 ...

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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

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

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Dell Unity XT vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 15% of the time

HPE Primera vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 14% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 10% of the time

Huawei OceanStor vs HPE Nimble Storage

Compared 2% of the time

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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

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

HPE Nimble Storage

August 2025

Download HPE Nimble Storage 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

Nimble Storage

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

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

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

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

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Buyer's Guide

HPE Nimble Storage vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

July 2025

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

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Nimble Storage vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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