Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) 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.
To learn more, read our detailed Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Report (Updated: March 2023).
685,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well.""Last year, I did a DM Series installation with my colleague, and this installation was effortless because we had Lenovo support on the phone, so it was easy to get help if we had any problems.""The most valuable feature of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its capability to tier to the cloud, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS. Additionally, the integration is good and they are user-friendly.""Scalable and stable storage array."

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"NetApp AFF has helped to simplify our clients' infrastructure while still getting very high performance for their business-critical applications. One of our customers uses the vSAN environment in the release, then they use NFS for their VMware VCF environment and TKG environment. In this case, when they move to NetApp for the TKG and the VM infrastructures, they use AFF for block, CIFS, and NFS. It provides a single storage with NFS, block, and CIFS with deduplication, team provisioning, and compression. Everything is in there, which makes it very good to use.""The Snapshots and just the overall flexibility of the product have been great.""It impacts customer retention because of its overall ease. When you are running a business, where time is a factor, that is the biggest selling point. Things happen really rapidly, when they happen, and being able to say, "Yeah, we can get this up and running in a day, if you want," or even less time in some cases. Sometimes, that can be what makes or breaks our case.""This solution helps accelerate demanding enterprise applications. VMware workloads, the database, and Oracle Solaris are hosted on AFF, which means that our primary priority workloads are on AFF and that the secondary ones are on FAS. That includes the SAN national cloud.""The NVMe flash cache is the most useful feature. It lowers transactional speed even more.""It simplifies data management for NAS environments with its ease of management, ease of share creation, and Active IQ feature. These features are good overall. It helps us manage data quickly and sufficiently. Also, compression features, like dedupe, give us a good ratio.""We have had issues before on our infrastructure where 20 to 30 percent of the people would come to us pointing the finger at the storage technology or storage back-end. That is now virtually zero.""Using System Manager for green management or command line interface, we have a single point for managing the cluster. It is much easier to manage. It is very seamless. The product is robust and solid."

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Cons
"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five.""The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series was very hard to configure. Installation of the product was very hard. These are its areas for improvement.""I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers.""Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve by having a snapshot feature. Additionally, there can be other features added to help restore the data faster."

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"It used to give us the volume where LANs should be placed when we created a LAN in the older version. However, in the newer version of ONTAP, it does not give where to place the LAN in the volume. So, that liberty has been taken away. If that was there again, it would be very good.""The initial setup has a lot more steps in it than are probably necessary for a base deployment, unlike other vendors where it's more straightforward. It could be a little bit more streamlined.""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.""When it comes to the cloud, they might need to improve in terms of making it clear why someone would use a NetApp solution over cloud-made storage.""After the three-year prepay, the extended warranty is a little expensive.""In the past, NetApp designed it so that you have a 70% threshold. You would never fill up past 70% since you need to have that room available. Whereas with Pure, I can fill it up to 110% of what they listed and it's still going at full speed. NetApp can't do that.""The NetApp support could be better.""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."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Lenovo offers two software tiers for the DM Series: basic and premium. If you need more features like the MetroCluster, you must buy the premium version. You can stick to the basic software if you don't need MetroCluster or features like asynchronous replication. That makes DM Series a little cheaper."
  • "The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."
  • More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We benefited from implementing all-flash by reducing our data center footprint. We took it from 30 racks to just over five. This is one of the biggest savings for us."
  • "The licensing and pricing are fine. As a reseller for the product, we need to make the differentiation in the minds of the customer. They are not just buying some tool that does only one thing, e.g., showing a LAN for a customer. The pricing is fair for what it is."
  • "In addition to simplifying the management across a mix of solutions, AFF simplifies the cost. That was one of the main reasons we purchased AFF."
  • "NetApp AFF is an expensive product, although not compared to other vendors."
  • "The pricing is pretty reasonable for what we get. But if you have to buy any more disk space, it can be quite expensive."
  • "The list price of AFF is too expensive... they need to be careful with the pricing of the new NVMe disks. They are way too expensive."
  • "I looked at other vendors for other potential projects and thought NetApp's pricing was very competitive."
  • "There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost. The cost is very high compared to other devices."
  • More NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:It's difficult to calculate pricing on the solution. Lenovo does help us, as a partner, however, there are different types of storage at different price points, and also certain items that are built… more »
    Top Answer:Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed.
    Top Answer:Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in the same volume that features is difficult to find in other Storage but the… more »
    Top Answer:This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended cost is decisively based on the Gartner magic quadrant storage 2020 Net app company… more »
    Top Answer:The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matters more than IOPS for your needs, Netapp AFF is the right choice. You can approach… more »
    Ranking
    25th
    out of 38 in All-Flash Storage
    Views
    4,816
    Comparisons
    4,282
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    237
    Rating
    6.0
    3rd
    out of 38 in All-Flash Storage
    Views
    18,029
    Comparisons
    13,524
    Reviews
    25
    Average Words per Review
    825
    Rating
    9.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    ThinkSystem DM Series
    NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
    Learn More
    Overview

    To meet enterprise storage requirements, ThinkSystem All-Flash DM Series systems provide high performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data management. DM Series runs on ONTAP data management software, which gives customers unified storage across block-and-file workloads. It accelerates your business while improving the efficiency, flexibility, and reliability of your IT operations.

    NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) is a storage infrastructure that contains only flash memory drives instead of spinning-disk drives. NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) addresses enterprise storage requirements with best-in-class data management, higher performance, and flexibility. All Flash FAS systems accelerate your operations without sacrificing the effectiveness, dependability, or adaptability of your IT infrastructure, since they are built on ONTAP data management software. As an enterprise-grade all-flash array, the NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) manages and safeguards your critical data, making your datacenter’s transition to flash simple and painless.

    NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) is a robust, scale-out platform designed for virtualized environments and can be deployed as an independent system or a high-performance tier in a NetApp ONTAP configuration.

    NetApp All Flash FAS Features

    NetApp AFF has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Cloning and Snapshot copies combined with native space efficiency can lower storage expenses.
    • Near-zero performance impact for snapshot copy creation, cloning, and replication.
    • Application-consistent Snapshot copies simplify app management.
    • Synchronous replication using NetApp MetroCluster software, a feature that is only available from NetApp in the all-flash array market and provides zero RPO and close to zero RTO for workloads that are mission-critical.
    • Support for at-rest data encryption and an onboard key manager to help secure your data through easier key management.
    • NetApp SnapMirror replication software reduces overall system costs by replicating to any type of FAS/AFF system, whether it is all-flash, hybrid, or HDD, on premises or in the cloud.

    NetApp All Flash FAS Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing NetApp AFF. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Change the economics of your data center with flash - you'll consume 11 times less electricity, require 11 times less rack space, and spend 67 percent less on support compared to a data center using HDDs.
    • Manage data with a single piece of software for SAN and NAS settings, including flash, disk, and the cloud.
    • Within 10 minutes, you can provision storage and serve data.
    • Inline data reduction technology can reduce SSD storage by 5 to 10 times on average.
    • Protect your data using the system's best-in-class integrated data protection suite.
    • Scale out to 24 nodes, 367PB of effective capacity, and 4 million IOPS without causing disruption.
    • Accelerate applications with up to 12 times more IOPS and 20 times faster response thanks to NetApp ONTAP FlashEssentials.

    Reviews from Real Users

    NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its handling of read and write operations and its high-capacity drives. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    Harish M., Senior Consultant at a tech services company, writes of the solution, “The most valuable feature is its ability to handle high-intensity read and write operations. It works very well in terms of this.” He adds, “We recently started using the volume encryption feature, which is helpful because there are some federal projects that require data at rest to be encrypted.”

    Another PeerSpot reviewer, a director at an IT Infrastructure Services department at a university, notes, “In terms of the footprint, it is far more efficient. It has smaller, higher-capacity drives than our older unit. In terms of space, power, and cooling, it has simplified things.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
    Learn more about NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS)
    Sample Customers
    Information Not Available
    Acibadem Healthcare Group, AmTrust Financial Services, Citrix Systems, DWD, Mantra Group
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company25%
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Healthcare Company15%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Computer Software Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business60%
    Large Enterprise40%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise55%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise75%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise60%
    Buyer's Guide
    Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS)
    March 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
    685,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is ranked 25th in All-Flash Storage with 4 reviews while NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) is ranked 3rd in All-Flash Storage with 25 reviews. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is rated 6.0, while NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series writes "It's a scalable all-in-one system with unified block and file storage and cloud tiering. ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) writes "Provides us with quick options when restoring things for customers". Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is most compared with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore and HPE Nimble Storage, whereas NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) is most compared with Dell Unity XT, Pure Storage FlashArray, Dell PowerStore, HPE Nimble Storage and IBM FlashSystem. See our Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp AFF (All Flash FAS) 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.