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Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs NetApp AFF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
314
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
 

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 Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 8.8%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp AFF8.8%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe1.4%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series2.1%
Other87.7%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
GP
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…
KennethEtsula - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at Spartec
Offers seamless installation and efficient data handling with robust support
NetApp AFF provides an all-flash storage solution for unified SAN solutions, supporting both SAN and NAS functionalities. Data reduction capabilities such as deduplication, compression, and compaction are standard features included with the license in NetApp AFF. With the storage efficiency from a NetApp AFF installation, users can manage substantial data running on all-flash. The features such as compaction and compression provide storage efficiency guarantees in an all-flash environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"The solution is very straightforward to set up."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"Its initial setup process is easy."
"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."
"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"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 highly reliable, especially for block-level storage. It is stable, with minimal downtime and no issues beyond user errors."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the software bundle, replication, and cloud connectivity."
"Tech support has been absolutely amazing. I think on the technical aspects as well, my staff is able to get great support from the NetApp technical support resources that we have. What I love about NetApp is they have a health care division. At times, it's such an amazing thing because if we have a healthcare-related issue, there's no one better than having prior CIOs from health care organizations that NetApp has hired, and that are part of the health care team, to help out with any of those initiatives and support problems. Support has been absolutely phenomenal."
"There are two compression technologies available within it, and they are valuable because they allow for significantly higher data storage capacity and the retention of a larger number of snapshots on the system."
"The file-based protocol supports NFS and CIFS."
"Multi-protocol is the most valuable feature for us. It does everything in one system: sifts, EBES, ISCSI, and fiber channel. Other systems don't do all that."
"One of the main features that we love about the system is the ability to create snapshots. NetApp makes a lot of snapshots in a short space of time. Also, the speed of data recovery with NetApp, at the time we need it, is an important feature that we love."
"Even though the complete workload will fill out the AFF storage box, it will give us sustained stability."
"The design has been great."
 

Cons

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."
"We would like to see more visibility into garbage collection and CPU performance in the GUI."
"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."
"The product could support advanced software integrations."
"It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"Its performance could be faster."
"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."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"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."
"The features are limited."
"Its technical support could be better."
"I honestly don't have anything of note on how they can improve."
"There is no direct storage attachment available. Most configurations require additional switches for data access."
"Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant."
"The product should be more competitive and come up with additional features. They should keep the client always in mind and as the top priority. This would be the best way to compete with other solutions."
"It can get a little expensive if you need to add more disks. The cost is a pain point for us, especially in terms of expansion."
"Going forward, I would like improvement in the response latencies, capacity size, cache, and controller size."
"When it comes to the connectivity on the back end, where the hardware is concerned—the cabling and the like—it could also be simplified to ease the communication between the nodes and between the other components of the infrastructure. I still find that a little bit complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"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."
"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 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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"The solution's price could be better."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."
"It is an expensive solution."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."
"We would like it to be free."
"Our space savings through dedupe and compression is over 50 percent, so we are saving. I think our 8080s has 20TBs. We are saving at least 10TBs and that's over 50 percent of the capacity that we're using."
"The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
"NetApp AFF is somewhat pricey. If they weren't as pricey, that would be a big deal for us."
"Our total cost of ownership (TCO) has decreased by 40 percent."
"Planning of all the lifecycle storage with NetApp AFF is part of the solution. While it is not cheap, they have introduced a new series of AFF that are more affordable, providing options for more users."
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Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Jan 28, 2015
NetApp vs. XtremIO
Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
6%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
 

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.
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...
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 ...
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.
What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved.
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...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
ThinkSystem DE Series
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp AFF and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,844 professionals have used our research since 2012.