Kaminario K2 [EOL] vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

Silk and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Additionally, 94% of Silk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kaminario K2 [EOL] and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed All-Flash Storage Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

August 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

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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Engineerdb78

Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

A solution with a simple configuration and good stability but it's quite expensive

Access to technical support should be improved for our region. Technical support is good, but they're very hard to access. When we have a problem with this storage, it's usually related to a very bad configuration. All-Flash Storage is very, very expensive. They are important solutions so I don't really have any ideas about how to rectify this. The device could use better monitoring tools.

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Mark Richmond

Chief Technology Officer at Next Level Communications

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…

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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

"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."

"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

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

"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."

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

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Latency is definitely the big key for us."

"Built-in snapshot support gives us SAN-side functionality most other platforms would have had us license separately."

"The speed and, for us in particular in what we're doing, the data de-duplication."

"The most valuable feature is definitely the always-on data deduplication."

"It provides a full feature set without separate licensing (deduplication, compression, snapshot, asynchronous replication, stable performance, etc.)."

"The ratio between the physical storage and the storage we use is very high."

"The GUI is very straightforward and easy to use."

"Logic/software management"

More Kaminario K2 [EOL] pros

"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 servers are fast and affordable."

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

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

"We are satisfied with the stability."

"The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload."

"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."

"Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series pros

Cons

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

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

"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."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

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

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"I would like them to improve the look of the product’s external casing and shelves."

"I would like to see LDAP for the management panel; I've been notified they might be currently working on it."

"I would love to see capacity on its DRAM. I know it's not cost effective for them to do it, but I think that it could be a big differentiator and was a big differentiator from the beginning."

"The system currently has a 15TB LUN size limit and that snapshots need to be scheduled through script API instead of the GUI."

"The front panel of the drive shelf doesn't always seat firmly."

"Some of the nice to haves for us, in terms of today, would be VVols but again, it’s not a critical feature."

"A single pane of glass to monitor/manage multiple arrays would be helpful."

"Improved scale and budget planning with flexibility of the solution for budget needs and efficiency for growth with the great optimization ratio due to the nature of our use."

More Kaminario K2 [EOL] cons

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

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve by having a snapshot feature. Additionally, there can be other features added to help restore the data faster."

"This is an expensive solution."

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

"The tool's pricing is high."

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

"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."

"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."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

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

"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."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

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

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"All features are provided in the licensing. The cost of Kaminario was less than the cost of a hybrid array."

"The licensing is all-inclusive."

"The "extra" costs associated with features and options that are available off the shelf with Kaminario, make their value proposition extremely competitive."

"I would like them to come down in price. It is as expensive as EMC, Hitachi, and other major vendors."

"The Kaminario setup is simple and there are no hidden licensing fees so this area is a relief."

"Kaminario is very competitive on price. They also have a pay per TB model."

"Licensing is very straightforward. The cost was considerably lower than other products we looked at."

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

"The solution is highly-priced."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

No data available

Computer Software Company

23%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

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	4
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	9

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

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 ...

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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 ...

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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...

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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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Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 24% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

No data available

NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 37% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 14% 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 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 6% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

Kaminario K2 [EOL]

August 2025

Download Kaminario K2 [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

August 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

ThinkSystem DM 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

Kaminario K2 is the world’s only storage solution that delivers the predictability needed to handle the highly unpredictable world of modern businesses. This highly flexible all flash storage platform allows customers to cost-effectively scale capacity and performance to support their ever-changing business –seamlessly, on-demand and with no disruptions.

Data Sheet and eBook

Silk

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

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Wargaming.net, El Rio Community Health Center, ECN, SpotOption, Ashkelon College, Clearwater Analytics, Intigua, Cobb EMC Customer Case Study

Information Not Available

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in All-Flash Storage. Updated: August 2025.

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