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Kaminario K2 [EOL] vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Kaminario K2 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (21st)
 

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.
Engineerdb78 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the features that my customers are really interested in is immutable snapshots. There are immutable snapshots to which your applications can be reverted back if you are hit by some kind of ransomware threat or malicious attack. That's kind of a key deal, and it is one of the selling points I use to point out to my customers the value and the features that Pure Storage brings to the table."
"It's a great return on investment, based on the mission."
"Performance is the most valuable feature."
"We put a fair amount of stress on it because we run sequel workloads and we run web applications where the same web files are hit over and over, and we have had almost zero stability issues with that SAN, which has been really great for us."
"The most valuable features are extremely low latency, high IOPS with VMware, inline deduplication and compression."
"At this point, I don't know anything that they could provide in a better way."
"It does everything they say it will do: It's very cost-effective compared to other big players, integrates very well with VMware, is tiny so we're saving power and space in the data center, and it's really easy for us to manage."
"You can get your storage access within two minutes, which is great, because it is a lot quicker for our team to get the servers up and running."
"Logic/software management"
"I think this product hits all the big features of all the SANs that are out there, all the storage vendors that are out there and more."
"Using snapshots allows us to automate production database refreshes to development environments in minutes, rather than in hours."
"The speed and, for us in particular in what we're doing, the data de-duplication."
"The increased performance is many times above our previous array performance in all metrics. Integration with vSphere features is also a definite plus."
"Technical support is absolutely great."
"The K2 has basically removed storage as a bottleneck in our datacenter."
"Image backups of our production servers that used to take hours now take minutes."
"We are satisfied with the stability."
"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well."
"Scalable and stable storage array."
"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."
"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."
"Lenovo offers a good variaty of Storage Systems. Starts with DS, then DE and the most sophisticated version - DM-Series."
"In summary, this is a good product and is one that I recommend."
"The servers are fast and affordable."
 

Cons

"The GUI is simplistic and basic. I feel like it's explanatory, but not enough, it needs a little more to it."
"The capability from Pure as far as sharing out files and things of that nature is a little bit lacking."
"Areas for improvement would be the financial operations. In the next release, I would like to see a NAS protocol included."
"I would like some performance analytics which go deeper than today. It should be specific to some hosts and applications. This would be good."
"FlashArray's capacity for forecasting should be improved because it needs to be a bit more current. I think it's bundled with the deduplication and other compression factors. We need more user interfaces for forecasting in this software and more interfaces need to be integrated with this array management tool."
"I would like to see support for NVMe, end-to-end."
"The only thing is that we've had to upgrade controllers a few times because we ended up wanting to use more stuff on here."
"What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it. Today, it does not understand the applications which are running against it."
"Some of the nice to haves for us, in terms of today, would be VVols but again, it’s not a critical feature."
"The interface look and feel could be improved."
"I'd give it a perfect rating if I could push it to 300,000 IOPS like they promote; we just haven't been able to push that many IOPS out of our system."
"I would like to see LDAP for the management panel; I've been notified they might be currently working on it."
"I think it should have better performance with small files. With big data, its performance is top notch, but it is difficult to load small files."
"I would like to see them work with Cisco, so it comes off the FIs, instead of having to go through my 10-gig network."
"On the road map, I'm hoping to see Active Directory integration. Right now, you still have to use a local admin account to log in and manage everything."
"Access to technical support should be improved for our region. Technical support is good, but they're very hard to access."
"In comparison with other similar solutions, I think this one is the most expensive."
"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."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."
"The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series was very hard to configure. Installation of the product was very hard. These are its areas for improvement."
"The solution needs a simpler licensing theme around the DM series."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"I have had a couple of customers who have complained about the cost. It can be a little more expensive than some of the other platforms. After it has been installed, I have never had a customer say, "I wish we wouldn't have spent all that extra money." They have always been happy with the product after it has been installed. They might be on the fence about it because of the price, but everybody who I have ever seen install it, they are always happy with it."
"In the beginning, we saw that the price is not very good. When we made some compilations about the deduplication and the compression and what the equipment does, including the differentiation of upper management of the storage, the price was not so bad. However, in the beginning, the price was very difficult to justify."
"The price is reasonable."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
"I would prefer that they lower their pricing."
"The price of the solution can be a bit expensive. There is an additional fee for support."
"The licensing is all-inclusive."
"All features are provided in the licensing. The cost of Kaminario was less than the cost of a hybrid array."
"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."
"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 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 solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."
"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

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 Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

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...
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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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
ThinkSystem DM Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Wargaming.net, El Rio Community Health Center, ECN, SpotOption, Ashkelon College, Clearwater Analytics, Intigua, Cobb EMC Customer Case Study
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