Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs SolidFire comparison

Lenovo and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Lenovo is ranked #23 with an average rating of 9.3, while NetApp is ranked #31 with an average rating of 8.7. Lenovo holds a 2.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Lenovo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

SolidFire and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are two competing storage solutions. Based on user reviews, Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series has the upper hand due to its extensive features and robustness for high-demand applications.

Features: SolidFire offers automation capabilities, high performance, and customer support that users commend. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series provides scalability, high IOPS performance, and a broader range of features, favoring high-demand applications.

Room for Improvement: SolidFire could improve integration with third-party tools, detailed logging, and scalability options. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series needs better management tools, more flexible upgrade options, and enhancements in user interface design.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolidFire is straightforward to deploy and has commendable customer support. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, though slightly more complex in deployment, also receives positive feedback for customer service.

Pricing and ROI: SolidFire is a cost-effective solution with quick ROI due to its lower setup costs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, despite higher initial costs, offers better long-term value due to its comprehensive feature set, suitable for strategic investments.

To learn more, read our detailed Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. SolidFire Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. SolidFire

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 850,028 peers since 2012

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 May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

Read full review

Gastone Canali

IT Consultant at Effegibi

Provides good stability and is reliable in terms of performance

The solution is reliable in terms of performance They should include a snapshot feature for the solution. We have been using the solution for two to three years. The solution is stable. We have 60 solution users in our organization. The solution's initial setup process is easy. It takes three…

Read full review

Ramil Cerrada

Solution lead at Globe Mobile

A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance

The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"The solution is scalable."

"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."

"FlashArray has some fresh efficiency features. I've never seen a storage solution with a compression rating this high before. It's at least 4-to-1 on Oracle databases. It's the best flash storage for Oracle."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"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 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."

"We have been working with the solution for around a year and so far it has shown itself to be stable."

"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 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."

"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."

"The solution's initial setup process is easy."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pros

"SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products."

"SolidFire provides seamless performance across your storage system when you need to scale up. Other storage systems do not do that."

"The quality of service for minimum iOS, to maximum iOS in a multi-terminal environment is very powerful. The SQL service feature is the best part of SolidFire."

"The simplicity of it."

"If you buy the solution for its specific purpose it will work well."

"It's got full API functionality and the performance is pretty steady."

"Individual settings you can put on each individual volume, if you want to do that."

"It is very easy to scale up SolidFire."

More SolidFire pros

Cons

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"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 VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

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

"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."

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

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"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."

"Its performance could be faster."

"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."

"The product could support advanced software integrations."

"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."

"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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

"SolidFire could improve in terms of hardware robustness."

"Though it is a stable solution, its users may face some security issues at times...The security provided by the solution is one area that can be improved."

"The user interface needs to be improved. Much of the client feedback involves comments such as "Oh, it's hard to navigate through.""

"They could do a file-based NAS: SolidFire NAS-based. It's probably not its niche, but that is our direction, not to use block, and it's block. Solid state block is what it is."

"A little better segregation of the multi-tenancy. Right now, it's just VLAN-specific, that's all you can do."

"It's a very good Windows-type solution. But we do a lot of legacy systems and the like. So it's getting that incorporated into it that would help us."

"The tool should improve its initial cost which is expensive compared to other products."

"We are looking for, potentially, on the Active IQ reporting side, to do reporting based on the datastore. Right now, I can report on the whole SolidFire, or I can report on just a certain datastore or a volume. I'd like to take all of my VDI infrastructure, which as an example would be multiple datastores."

More SolidFire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The product is expensive."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"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."

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."

"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."

"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."

"The solution's price could be better."

"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."

"It is an expensive solution."

"We have a five-year contract for providing support."

"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pricing and cost advice

"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."

"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."

"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."

"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"

"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

University

Financial Services Firm

38%

Computer Software Company

19%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The solution's initial setup process is easy.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved.

See all answers

What do you like most about SolidFire?

The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?

It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay fo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolidFire?

There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 30% 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 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 31% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 13% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 13% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 8% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Competitors

NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 100% of the time

More SolidFire Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

April 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire

April 2025

Download SolidFire product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

ThinkSystem DE Series

No data available

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

The DE All-Flash Series delivers the performance of more than 2,000 15k rpm HDDs, yet requires only 2% of the rack space, power, and cooling. Because it consumes 98% less space and power, DE Series can significantly improve the overall efficiency of your IT operations while continuing to meet your performance requirements.

Lenovo

SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. SolidFire

April 2025

Free Report: Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. SolidFire

Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. SolidFire report.

See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.