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Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs VIOLIN QV2020 [EOL] 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
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (2nd)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (22nd)
VIOLIN QV2020 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
GP
System Administrator at PORTGUARDIAN.COM SRL
Reliable synchronous replication has protected our infrastructure and improved disaster recovery
I do not have anything else to add about how I'm using Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series beyond what I have already discussed. I do not have comprehensive information about all the features, but I can say that we have obtained many performance benefits from the storage using SSD Enterprise disk. Regarding Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series's AI capabilities, I think the best practice is to use it with double factor authentication and AI integration. I believe the accuracy and reliability of output for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are very good, but I do not have detailed information; I would need to think deeply and try to understand more thoroughly on the web interface to provide more specific feedback. My advice for others looking into using Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is to seek a stable infrastructure with a standard price—not a high price, not a low price, but a standard price with high performance. My overall rating for this product is 10.
Ramil Cerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution lead at Globe Mobile
Has high-speed data access and processing capabilities, distinguishing it as a leader in its storage solutions category
VIOLIN QV2020 lacks scalability. This affects both the timeframe for installation and the performance of end-users. Additionally, there's a challenge in deploying horizontally, either by deploying between different nodes or adding new ones. We have many customers. 50,000 users are using this solution. It depends on the projects being taken out of the operations team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Everpure FlashArray has positively impacted my organization, particularly in performance and reliability, as we've had good improvements, making our applications run faster and giving us more confidence that they will not crash."
"All use cases for Everpure FlashArray are anything that requires a SAN should use it because it is the easiest thing on the market."
"It has made working with storage as easy and simple as it should be."
"We have looked at all of the platforms, and to see what Pure was able to do within a PoC environment meant that we never turned back our PoC environment."
"This solution has improved my organization because it has good performance."
"We actually originally went with a competitor's product, and after about eight months, a lot of wrangling, had them buy it back from us, and then we bought a similar Pure Storage product, and it's just been great."
"We're getting good performance, and the compression ratio is also very good in Pure Storage FlashArray."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"My advice to others is that this is a straightforward, detailed documented, and supported solution."
"We have had a very good experience with customer service and support, as they answer questions very fast and resolve our issues."
"Its initial setup process is easy."
"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, and it integrates pretty well."
"ThinkSystem is a good offer and can work out well if you can work with it to fit the use cases that you have."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"It has lowered batch times from 14 hours to two hours."
"VIOLIN QV2020 is the latest in terms of performance. It has high-speed data access and processing capabilities, distinguishing it as a leader in its storage solutions category."
"It’s simple to use hardware to fix performance issues. Our issue is poor coding/queries. This greatly speeded things up. It’s too costly to track down poor programming in applications. The price of a developer’s time to scan through all the coding is high compared to buying Violin."
 

Cons

"Pure will probably have to move to other layers of the stack, not only storage but, maybe, hyperconverged."
"Everpure FlashArray can be improved as the pricing is expensive, but you do get what you pay for; you are paying a premium for better service, better warranties, less downtime, and other things, so I do not know that a lower price would work out because you probably would not have that high of quality for those things."
"I would like to see active replication. I know that it's available now but I haven't tried it yet. I hope that it works."
"I can't see where they can make anything better, unless, of course, they lower their prices even more."
"I recognize it's a difficult challenge, but I would like to see them make the pricing more reasonable."
"Pricing could be better in comparison to other solutions."
"We had one instance with an eight-hour outage in our primary data center because the upgrade to the controller failed, and the controller redundancy didn't work."
"With the introduction of Albireo technology and 81x data de-duplication reduction, Pure Storage better start looking at more effective de-duplication techniques."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."
"You can not buy a lot of options for these devices. There are a lot of things that it does not do."
"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."
"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."
"The features are limited."
"VIMM replacement is poorly designed. You have to slide out an entire drawer, remove the cover and then pop out the failed VIMM. I would like to see a front replacement just like with hard disks. This leaves room for error; for example, when you slide it out from the rack, you are moving cables along the cable management arm. This leaves the possibility of accidentally unplugging a cable from the array if it is not seated properly. Also, you might pinch the cables when sliding it back into the server rack."
"VIMM replacement is poorly designed."
"I set up Wi-Fi for storage, and since then, we haven't experienced any interruptions in service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing is on a yearly basis. So, every year, we renew. We could do a three-year contract, but right now, we only do a one-year."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"Once you purchase Pure Storage FlashArray it is all-inclusive, you receive all the licenses needed."
"The price of the solution is not expensive."
"We implemented Pure Storage FlashArray nine years ago when it was new to the market and obtained it at a preferential price."
"The license for Pure Storage FlashArray includes the support and there are no additional payments that are needed. This is not an inexpensive solution, you need to understand the value of your data before you use a backup solution."
"Pure Storage is expensive. It comes with features, so you get what you pay for. It is expensive compared to our old storage systems, but from the amount of human effort that you have to pay to babysit a storage system, it reduces that. I don't know if the TCO is reduced, but it's not a concern for us."
"We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
"The solution's price could be better."
"It is an expensive solution."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"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 for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"They will beat anyone’s price right now. They are struggling and just need to get product out their doors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
No data available
 

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?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is very good because we are a Lenovo partner. For installation ...
What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series can be improved with a 25 gigabyte connection or 100 gigabyte connection.
What is your primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
My main use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is storage for our infrastructure and replica with another data cen...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
ThinkSystem DE Series
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
BlueScope Buildings, GameVil, VRT, IKYU Corporation
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