Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Lenovo and NetApp are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Lenovo is ranked #22 with an average rating of 9.0, while NetApp is ranked #24 with an average rating of 9.0. Lenovo holds a 2.0% mindshare in AFS, compared to NetApp’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 60% of Lenovo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series compete in high-performance data storage solutions. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series has an upper hand in features while NetApp EF-Series excels in pricing and support.

Features: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays offer high-speed performance, reliability for quick data access, and minimal latency. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series provides comprehensive data management capabilities, integration options, and scalability.

Room for Improvement: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays need better reporting capabilities and interface enhancements. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series can improve the initial setup process and documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays have a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series features a more complex setup procedure but offers extensive support and resources.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays provide a cost-effective solution with substantial ROI. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, with a higher initial setup cost, offers a strong ROI through advanced features and performance benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

December 2025

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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 January 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.0%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series	2.0%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays	0.9%
Other	95.7%

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

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.

Read full review

Augustine Gracious

Service manager at Crescent Technologies

Complicated deployment and poor support persist, affecting overall satisfaction

The deployment process of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is very complicated compared to previous GUI systems. Many customers have lost data while configuring it, indicating a need for improvement. The after-sales service is also very poor. Furthermore, it does not offer basic features like deduplication, and the service is generally considered to be very bad.

Read full review

Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

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

"The database workloads are pretty fast because I frequently move data from here to there."

"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."

"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

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

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The FlexClone feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."

"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."

"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."

"Scalable and stable storage array."

"We are satisfied with the stability."

"The price of this solution is good."

"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series pros

"This storage solution is both stable and scalable, and it works for our needs."

"It provides multi-protocol, which is what gives the edge when it comes to big lineage PC workloads."

"I would have to say performance at this point, because the application it is based on is so diverse."

"Compared to Dell Unity XT, what I see as an advantage in NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is the fact that it is more scalable...The performance of the product is good."

"Its performance is most valuable. This solution is much faster than other as well as older storage solutions. The performance of the system is very good. We are getting 50 times better experience than the older storages. We are using AFF 300. It also has native cloud integration and most of the features."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the performance of the database access."

"The NetApp EF-Series gave our organization easy access to our data bases."

"The management of it is very simple. that is the most valuable feature."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

Cons

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"I want to see Pure Storage not only be for fast storage, but I want to see it be for the entire data center."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers."

"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 is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."

"The solution should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements."

"The licensing model needs to be revisited. It needs to be simplified."

"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five."

"The solution needs a simpler licensing theme around the DM series. The problem is if you only need one of the features, you still have to buy the whole thing. The licensing needs to be more granular or flexible so you have the option to only license FlexCone or Inline Compression features."

"It takes a very long time to enter the management console, as well as to restart the system, and these are things that should be improved."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

"NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate."

"This solution does not have any compression or deduplication."

"I would like to shrink it more, if we can. The smaller, the better."

"The price of the All Flash solution is very high."

"It needs a better management tool."

"We have used IBM previously. We found that the storage from IBM was poor and we chose NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays because it can scale very easily."

"There could be an improvement when it comes to SLA support, it could be faster."

"Their problems are on the software and the controlling of the storage where they lack segmentation and federation."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."

"The product is expensive."

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

"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."

"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 support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."

"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."

"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 solution is highly-priced."

"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."

"One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to renew the license."

"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."

"The pricing of the solution is expensive, considering the initial investment required...At the end of the product's life cycle, it could get cheaper, but the initial investment in NetApp makes it one of the most expensive solutions."

"They provide licenses upon purchase, so there's no need for additional licenses. Regarding additional expenses apart from the standard licensing fees, such as for support or maintenance, there aren't any. Updates take around twenty to thirty minutes, including rebooting the systems, and we haven't faced any problems with the NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. We utilize various other storages like Fujitsu, IBM, and Dalian SIP, but the NetApp EF-Series stands out as we've had no issues throughout the entire year of usage."

"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."

"The cost of our license is approximately $200,000 over three years for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. There can be additional costs for storage. For example, if you want to have eight terabytes."

"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

13%

Performing Arts

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	2

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	18

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?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

There are extra expenses beyond the standard licensing fee for features such as replication and deduplication, which ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

The deployment process of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is very complicated compared to previous GUI systems. Many cus...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

My primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series ( /products/lenovo-thinksystem-dm-series-reviews ) is for storag...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

There are so many things to talk about around the use cases associated with the tool. There are so many reasons why I...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

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NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 33% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 12% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 9% of the time

HPE Primera vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 3% of the time

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NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 13% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 10% of the time

Dell XtremIO vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

January 2026

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Also Known As

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

ThinkSystem DM Series

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

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

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.

Lenovo

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

December 2025

Free Report: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

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