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

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

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
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
24th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
30th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.9%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 1.6%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.9%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series1.6%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays1.4%
Other90.1%
All-Flash Storage
 

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.
CA
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.
Tayo Olubanke - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From the performance that I've seen, the simplicity of how to use it, the responsiveness, and customer experience, it is one of the best companies that I have worked with so far."
"It is fast and reliable. It works."
"Biggest lesson learned: Why didn't I switch sooner?"
"It's simple, powerful, and ready to use."
"When you put all of the features in a box, leverage them and migrate your application to one of these arrays, it will give you a lot of benefits."
"Pricing is very competitive, and it's better than other competitors, as we've looked at some of the other competitors on the market."
"The performance is great."
"Reliability and performance are its most valuable feature."
"The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is a stable storage system."
"In this solution, I like the option of clustering two storages together and that there can be HA availability."
"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."
"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."
"We are satisfied with the stability."
"The Lenovo ThinkSystem is used for everything in our company from ERP to BI, for production, PLM, CAD for designing, and everything else."
"In summary, this is a good product and is one that I recommend."
"The FlexClone feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The NetApp EF-Series gave our organization easy access to our databases, and what's great about this solution is that it speeds up our data store because it is a cheap solution for flash performances."
"The benefits are better up-time, better response time."
"NetApp All Flash is a system that I recommend for a rapid storage solution."
"At the end of the day, low latency was what geared us towards the EF."
"The management software is very good."
"The solution allows us to segregate one storage unit from another."
"The speed is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its speed."
 

Cons

"The price of the Pure Storage Flash Array is too high and there needs to be more contract clarity."
"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see file-level encryption."
"I want to improve the overall service level of the solution."
"I would rate this solution an eight because we have had outages. The commit times went very high in the database. The whole array went down so our customers were down for around eight hours. This was a very big outage which could have been our fault because we didn't do the upgrade in time."
"I would like FlashArray to add reports that help us forecast our predicted resource needs based on current usage."
"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 price could be better."
"The solution should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."
"The licensing model needs to be revisited. It needs to be simplified."
"The Lenovo DM Series is an excellent storage product, but I think it isn't competitive with other companies like Dell EMC and IBM because IBM products are very cheap and have more 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."
"Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed."
"The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series was very hard to configure. Installation of the product was very hard. These are its areas for improvement."
"Lenovo could have a wider variety of storage solutions in the NAS space."
"For us, in our country, the solution is a bit expensive."
"This solution has limited storage."
"They could improve the product’s tools."
"Its pricing should be better. Its price is competitive, but they need to improve the pricing. They have different licensing models, which they need to improve. My expectation was cloud integration, which they have, but it is a different license. Therefore, people cannot enjoy it. If I want to use it, I need to pay extra. There is a cost involved for everything, but it should reach everyone. It is similar to having a Rolls-Royce, but you need to pay extra for the key. If you want the key, you need to pay."
"The EF-Series is not the most scalable solution."
"We need a center related to NetApp in Egypt so that we can deal with them directly."
"I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems."
"Here in Egypt, we do not have an official office or central point of support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very reasonable when compared to other solutions."
"The best features come included without any additional cost."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"There should be quite a bit of reduction of TCO with just licensing (and stuff) because we run the VM environment off it."
"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."
"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."
"Most of my customers pay for the license on a yearly basis. It can be expensive depending on the capacity number."
"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Construction Company
6%
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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 Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
 

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 DM Series?
There are extra expenses beyond the standard licensing fee for features such as replication and deduplication, which ...
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...
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...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
ThinkSystem DM Series
NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.