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Kaminario K2 [EOL] vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
218
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Kaminario K2 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (23rd)
 

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.
Engineerdb78 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
A solution with a simple configuration and good stability but it's quite expensive
Access to technical support should be improved for our region. Technical support is good, but they're very hard to access. When we have a problem with this storage, it's usually related to a very bad configuration. All-Flash Storage is very, very expensive. They are important solutions so I don't really have any ideas about how to rectify this. The device could use better monitoring tools.
CA
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I use all the features of this solution and I find them to be easy to use and functional, such as the compression and capacity to expand."
"It has improved my organization in the way that we have high reliability and faster access to our data."
"The support has been very good from Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The most valuable feature of Pure Storage FlashArray is the all-flash storage performance, low latency, and efficiency of their de-duplication technology. Additionally, the ease of use is good compared to other storage systems. The features in data protection, snapshotting, and replication between data centers and sites are superior to other solutions."
"It is fast and reliable. It works."
"From an intangible standpoint the lack of care and feeding is notable and freed up the Storage Team to do other things."
"I like FlashArray's ActiveCluster as well as its snapshot and cloning capabilities."
"All updates, upgrades, and hardware work are all performed on-line with no impact."
"The most valuable aspect is the use of solid-state storage drives instead of spinning drives."
"Implementation of the solution is very simple."
"The ratio between the physical storage and the storage we use is very high."
"Using snapshots allows us to automate production database refreshes to development environments in minutes, rather than in hours."
"The GUI is very straightforward and easy to use."
"Our holdup was disk I/O, so we did a PoC with Kaminario and we reduced build times down to fifteen minutes for a full build from two hours."
"The K2 has basically removed storage as a bottleneck in our datacenter."
"The most valuable feature is definitely the always-on data deduplication."
"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 servers are fast and affordable."
"Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability."
"The Lenovo ThinkSystem is used for everything in our company from ERP to BI, for production, PLM, CAD for designing, and everything else."
"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."
"One of the most valuable features of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is the snapshot feature."
"The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is a stable storage system."
 

Cons

"As partners, we should have the option to download the software, rather than have to go back through Pure to obtain it."
"I would like to have support available in Spanish."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"The product should improve its response time. I have also encountered issues with its configuration."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."
"In the next release of the solution I would like to see Vormetric native block encryption."
"Access to technical support should be improved for our region. Technical support is good, but they're very hard to access."
"Improved scale and budget planning with flexibility of the solution for budget needs and efficiency for growth with the great optimization ratio due to the nature of our use."
"I'm hoping to see Active Directory integration. Right now, you still have to use a local admin account to log in and manage everything."
"I think it should have better performance with small files. With big data, its performance is top notch, but it is difficult to load small files."
"The interface look and feel could be improved."
"I would like to see them work with Cisco, so it comes off the FIs, instead of having to go through my 10-gig network."
"There are a few areas where the system could be improved. Examples would be that the system currently has a 15TB LUN size limit and that snapshots need to be scheduled through script API instead of the GUI."
"I'd give it a perfect rating if I could push it to 300,000 IOPS like they promote; we just haven't been able to push that many IOPS out of our system."
"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."
"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five."
"The solution needs a simpler licensing theme around the DM series. The problem is if you only need one of the features, you still have to buy the whole thing. The licensing needs to be more granular or flexible so you have the option to only license FlexCone or Inline Compression features."
"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve by having a snapshot feature. Additionally, there can be other features added to help restore the data faster."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."
"The tool's pricing is high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"When you are paying more than you were paying for the storage space, you'd like the cost to be less. If they could get into the spinning disk kind of cost, that would be it."
"We have a seen a reduction in TCO. It is definitely a cost-effective solution for us. We have seen ROI."
"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
"It could always be lower, but it's okay."
"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."
"The "extra" costs associated with features and options that are available off the shelf with Kaminario, make their value proposition extremely competitive."
"I would like them to come down in price. It is as expensive as EMC, Hitachi, and other major vendors."
"The Kaminario setup is simple and there are no hidden licensing fees so this area is a relief."
"The licensing is all-inclusive."
"Kaminario is very competitive on price. They also have a pay per TB model."
"All features are provided in the licensing. The cost of Kaminario was less than the cost of a hybrid array."
"Licensing is very straightforward. The cost was considerably lower than other products we looked at."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."
"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."
"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
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Retailer
6%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business66
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

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?
The only issue is the pricing. Because we have competition, our customers always take another brand and say they can ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Our customers using Dell storage also use competing solutions. Our customers who have Everpure FlashArray may also ha...
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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 ...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
ThinkSystem DM Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Wargaming.net, El Rio Community Health Center, ECN, SpotOption, Ashkelon College, Clearwater Analytics, Intigua, Cobb EMC Customer Case Study
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