Huawei OceanStor vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series comparison

Huawei and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Huawei is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.9, while Lenovo is ranked #21 with an average rating of 10.0. Huawei holds a 2.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Huawei users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Huawei OceanStor and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are two prominent products in the storage solutions market. Huawei OceanStor offers a competitive edge with its affordability, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series stands out for its performance and reliability.

Features: Huawei OceanStor impresses users with its scalability, high availability, and efficient data management. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series stands out with its advanced integration capabilities, high-speed performance, and robust reliability.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest Huawei OceanStor needs improvements in backup functionalities, performance under heavy workloads, and enhanced user interface. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series users point out the need for better support options, improved documentation, and enhanced firmware updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Huawei OceanStor receives praise for a straightforward deployment process but has mixed reviews on customer service responsiveness. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is valued for its ease of setup with more favorable feedback regarding customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Huawei OceanStor is recognized for its cost-effectiveness and reasonable ROI. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, though more expensive, promises higher ROI due to its performance efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

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 Huawei OceanStor is 2.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Huawei OceanStor	2.3%
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.4%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series	2.1%
Other	94.2%

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.

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ChukwuemekaOnyemelukwe

Infrastructure Administrator - Server, Storage & Virtualization at MicroAccess Ltd

Uses a proprietary technology with simple interface and has easy deployment

If you are not generating a substantial amount of data, the available storage space might suffice, making scalability less of a concern. However, if your data generation increases and you require more storage, Huawei OceanStor offers solutions to expand your storage capacity. Expanding storage resources can involve additional costs and configuration efforts. Acquiring more storage solutions and ensuring their integration with your existing setup might require a significant investment of time and resources. While this process can be complex, it allows for seamless scalability as your data storage needs grow. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

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Giorgio Pozzi

System Administrator at PORTGUARDIAN.COM SRL

Performance and cost-effectiveness are maximized with seamless setup and significant ROI

I use Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series to replace the old storage in our infrastructure. Additionally, I use it in customer infrastructures to migrate from the old storage to the new one On the M storage, I find the best features to be deduplication and compression. On the DE storage, the most…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"The latency is good."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its ease of use."

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

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Huawei OceanStor is stable and reliable for storage solutions."

"Huawei OceanStor is designed with built-in high availability features, such as fault tolerance, ensuring consistent data access and minimizing downtime."

"The most valuable feature is the availability."

"Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support."

"The most valuable feature is the flexibility in the rail, as it is hybrid storage."

"The most valuable features of Huawei OceanStor are the dashboards, bandwidth, and data performance."

"It is easy to implement or install the tool."

"The solution is easy to use."

More Huawei OceanStor pros

"The most valuable features of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are the dual controllers, available installation documentation, and the option of multiple host bus adapter interfaces."

"The solution is very easy to set up."

"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is highly reliable, especially for block-level storage. It is stable, with minimal downtime and no issues beyond user errors."

"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."

"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. It integrates pretty well."

"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series pros

Cons

"It is on the expensive side."

"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."

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

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"I'd like to see the product implement active replication for vehicles such as VMware."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"We need better data deduplication."

"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The main concern is regarding the usability of the data storage."

"The user interface is not so user friendly."

"The management is not a good feature in all of Huawei products. It's not easy or simple. Huawei has some problems with management and handling storage information from one interface."

"In terms of marketing, they need to improve by putting more effort into making people aware of their products, especially in our region."

"The duration of the built-in snapshot technology must be improved."

"A concern with OceanStor is pricing. However, apart from that, there are no significant limitations or technical issues."

"We did experience a little latency with this solution."

"Huawei OceanStor should work on its saturation level and should be able to take up more load. It should give the same performance that it gives at 20 or 30 percent load for 80 percent as well."

More Huawei OceanStor cons

"The product could support advanced software integrations."

"Usually, when a part fails, we have to replace it and it takes a while. It would be better if the part could be available locally here in Kenya so we don't have to wait so long to repair the solution."

"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."

"Its performance could be faster."

"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."

"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."

"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."

"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is expensive."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price of the license is quite low, so it's not something special or expensive."

"The pricing depends on the features the customer wants, such as storage, RAM, and processors, but in general, Huawei is much cheaper compared to Dell and Cisco."

"Overall, the solution's pricing was cheaper."

"The product is cheap."

"We pay a monthly licensing fee for this solution. The price could be less expensive."

"The price of Huawei OceanStor should be less expensive. It is expensive at the moment."

"This product value matches its price."

"Huawei OceanStor is priced very well but is a bit complicated."

More Huawei OceanStor pricing and cost advice

"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."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."

"We have a five-year contract for providing support."

"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."

"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."

"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."

"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series 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

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

University

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	26
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3

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.

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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...

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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 do you like most about Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei OceanStor has the capability of SSDs, high-performance disks, and higher disk support.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei OceanStor's pricing is very aggressive, making it highly competitive.

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What needs improvement with Huawei OceanStor?

Huawei currently lacks a solution for high-performance AI, unlike other companies like DDN, WekaIO, or IBM BlueStore....

See all answers

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

The price of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is very good. We chose this type of storage for the performance and the price.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?

The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved.

See all answers

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

I use Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series to replace the old storage in our infrastructure. Additionally, I use it in custom...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Huawei OceanStor Dorado vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 14% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 5% of the time

HPE Primera vs Huawei OceanStor

Compared 3% of the time

More Huawei OceanStor Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 23% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 11% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 10% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Compared 3% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

January 2026

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor

January 2026

Download Huawei OceanStor product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

January 2026

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series product report

Also Known As

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

OceanStor Dorado V3 All-Flash Storage System, OceanStor 18000 V3 Series Storage Systems, OceanStor 6800 V3 Storage System

ThinkSystem DE 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

OceanStor Dorado V3 is the industry's first all-flash storage that puts NVMe into commercial use. It is specially designed for enterprises' mission-critical businesses, meeting the most-demanding performance and reliability requirements of databases, VDI, server virtualization, and SAP HANA.

Huawei

The DE All-Flash Series delivers the performance of more than 2,000 15k rpm HDDs, yet requires only 2% of the rack space, power, and cooling. Because it consumes 98% less space and power, DE Series can significantly improve the overall efficiency of your IT operations while continuing to meet your performance requirements.

Lenovo

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Piraeus, Clinique Univeritaires Saint-Luc

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

December 2025

Free Report: Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Huawei OceanStor vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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