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Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp NVMe AFF A800
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Mark Richmond - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable and fast servers with good support
We use on-premise servers with Lenovo ThinkSystem. We set up Hyper-V and load multiple types of servers including a domain controller, a SQL Server, and application servers The solution provides fast servers that are reasonably priced. We set up RAID ten to ensure drive redundancy, leading to…
Tanveer Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations
My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate the performance."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"The Pure1 component is most valuable at this point in time when comparing it with EMC. Pure1 is where you can have your diagnostics in the cloud, so you can look at things from your mobile phone."
"The latency is good."
"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 most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"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."
"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."
"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 value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."
"The servers are fast and affordable."
"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well."
"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."
"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."
"The price of this solution is good."
"We find the product to be very flexible."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."
"The product can be scaled vertically as well as horizontally."
"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."
"Over the eight years, we've been using NetApp with ONTAP, we've never lost a bit of data, and we've only experienced a few minutes of downtime in that entire time."
"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."
"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."
"The most valuable features are stability and performance."
 

Cons

"The software layer has to improve."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"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."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"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."
"There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers."
"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five."
"Lenovo could have a wider variety of storage solutions in the NAS space."
"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."
"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."
"The product’s UI could be better."
"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."
"The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"
"Sometimes, it takes a while to get somebody competent on the other end of the line. They do have engineers in multiple time zones around the world. However, their level-one support is not always the best."
"The cost of the solution is quite high. It would be ideal if they could adjust it so that it's a but less."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."
"The product is expensive."
"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."
"As far as the licensing costs, everything is included in the license."
"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."
"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."
"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."
"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."
"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."
"The solution is expensive."
"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
9%
 

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.
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 ...
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...
What do you like most about NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.
What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
ThinkSystem DM Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
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Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.