We performed a comparison between Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The best feature is consistently lower latency, even when IOPS crank up to over 75K. The product maintains submillisecond response time, which is incredible."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support."
"The performance of the storage is just unbelievable."
"Access speed and power consumption are most valuable."
"Technical support is excellent. I've had very good responses from technical support. We had a couple of cases where we needed support. Some of the communications were purely over email and some has been an actual call to the service desk."
"Pure is simple to set up and manage on a day-to-day basis."
"It gives us capacity planning."
"The stability and performance are the best things about the solution."
"Its initial setup process is easy."
"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."
"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"
"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"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."
"I would have to say performance at this point, because the application it is based on is so diverse."
"I like the performance aspect of EF Series. It basically provides everything that we are looking for as a solution, very low latency and very high performance."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its speed."
"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The main advantage of this solution is performance."
"The replication and mirroring features are very good."
"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."
"The file functionality could be better."
"In the configuration, which we brought in or tested it in, it has a very limited config as far as the array goes. That said, it still did more than our anticipation."
"The solution is not cheap."
"I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"A minor issue that comes to mind is that, every once in a while, a hard drive will go bad."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"It's not so scalable. It's got moderate scaling capabilities right now. The clustering technology needs a bit of work, they need to improve that."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"Its performance could be faster."
"The features are limited."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."
"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"The solution could be more scalable, although it suits our present needs."
"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."
"A little more manageability, a simpler management interface. It's not necessarily that it's way overly complex. It's just that it's not as easy as the FAS series."
"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."
"It was difficult to implement and lacks some additional features that would be useful, but as a solution fits a particular need for our organization."
"I've observed an issue when creating a new storage solution with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays."
"The solution's technical support is not as good as it is supposed to be since you have to push them to get support."
"They could improve overall scalability through performance. Denser capacity, which is doable, it is what the competition is doing."
"The dashboard could be simplified."
"There could be better integration with some of our Cisco products."
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Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is ranked 20th in All-Flash Storage with 11 reviews while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked 23rd in All-Flash Storage with 38 reviews. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is rated 8.6, while NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series writes "Provides good stability and is reliable in terms of performance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays writes "A storage solution that offers great stability, resilience, and support". Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, NetApp AFF, IBM FlashSystem and Dell Unity XT, whereas NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is most compared with NetApp AFF, Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, Huawei OceanStor Dorado and HPE Primera. See our Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report.
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