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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 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 Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.0%, 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 NVMe1.5%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series2.0%
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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"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."
"It has good, reliable, fast storage."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."
"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."
"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."
"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."
"We have been working with the solution for around a year and so far it has shown itself to be stable."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"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."
"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."
"My favorite part is all-flash solid drives. All of my applications are running on an all-flash array. Before, we used to get too many severity tickets on performance, but as soon as we migrated everything to an all-flash array, our critical applications are at top performance."
"Supports file formatting, the main protocols, and the hot swapping of disks and features."
"We have never had a failure. We can upgrade as we move along with zero downtime."
"The most valuable features are high performance and encryption. It also provides aggregate level dedupe."
"The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more."
"The most valuable aspect of NetApp AFF is the money it saves our organization."
"This solution makes everything a lot faster. The time to move data around, boot and migrate VMs is much faster."
"We have SQL clusters across the United States. It has sped up our IOPS and made it a lot easier for users."
 

Cons

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."
"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."
"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. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"We need better data deduplication."
"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."
"Its performance could be faster."
"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."
"The solution could be more scalable, although it suits our present needs."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved."
"The product could support advanced software integrations."
"It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"Implementation needs to be improved."
"NetApp AFF could improve SAN storage because it feels as if it was not put together at the beginning, it functions as an afterthought. Additionally, the cloud features could be more mature."
"I would like to see better tutorials available, beyond the basics, that cover subjects like MetroCluster and automation."
"It's a little behind on security. It's starting to get into multi-factor authentication, they just started to introduce it but not for all products."
"We would like to have a feature that automatically moves volumes between aggregates, based on the performance. We normally need to do this manually."
"There are little things that need improvement. For example, if you are setting up a SnapMirror through the GUI, you are forced to change the destination name of the volume, and we like to keep the volume names the same."
"Tech support is a place where there is room to improve the product experience. The response time when they are busy is not very good."
"We'd like to see data move faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"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."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."
"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
"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."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"The solution's price could be better."
"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 pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Once we did get into the NetApp ecosystem, we realized that the cost effectiveness was greater than we originally thought."
"The only area where the product has room for improvement is the cost."
"NetApp AFF is an expensive solution."
"Look at the different options that NetApp offers. Look for a model and option which fits your needs correctly. Don't buy a low-end product for a high-end job."
"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."
"I understand the cost is less than many other storages of same/similar performance benchmark."
"We have been able to utilize and leverage equipment which was purchased a decade ago up until this past year. So, we were running disk shells for 13 years and all we were doing was upgrading the filings and controllers, and using the same disk shells. Therefore, we were able to do something where we didn't have to invest that much. Recently, we had to upgrade all our disk shells, but it was a lot less because the technology had changed a lot since those times. It is faster now, and we have SSDs. We have larger drives that are 4TBs and 6TBs. Everything can condense so we are saving disk shell space and rack space. We are paying less now than we did at that time"
"If you go for Replication, Vault, and NAS, please ensure that the license has been ordered at the very beginning. However, licenses can been added or modified without rebooting the system at any time."
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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
5%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

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.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.