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Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs NetApp ASA 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
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp ASA
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise SAN (5th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.4%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 1.6%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ASA is 1.3%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.4%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series1.6%
NetApp ASA1.3%
Other90.7%
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.
GP
System Administrator at PORTGUARDIAN.COM SRL
Reliable synchronous replication has protected our infrastructure and improved disaster recovery
I do not have anything else to add about how I'm using Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series beyond what I have already discussed. I do not have comprehensive information about all the features, but I can say that we have obtained many performance benefits from the storage using SSD Enterprise disk. Regarding Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series's AI capabilities, I think the best practice is to use it with double factor authentication and AI integration. I believe the accuracy and reliability of output for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series are very good, but I do not have detailed information; I would need to think deeply and try to understand more thoroughly on the web interface to provide more specific feedback. My advice for others looking into using Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is to seek a stable infrastructure with a standard price—not a high price, not a low price, but a standard price with high performance. My overall rating for this product is 10.
KS
Team Lead at kiran@ncrust.com
Virtualization platform has delivered consistent low-latency SAN storage and 24-7 data access
The stand-out feature for me is the SAN storage because of its ability to deliver consistent sub-millisecond latency, 100% availability, active-active paths, and no performance tuning headache. When maximum users connect at the same time, there is no latency experienced. The main impact of NetApp ASA on my organization is that my data is available 24/7. Whenever I have a requirement over the VPN or inside the LAN, I can access my data anytime and anywhere as per my need.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very reliable."
"The code upgrades are very smooth."
"If you need faster storage and a good product, this is the one you should go ahead with."
"I find two features of Pure Storage most valuable. The first is the "safe mode" function, and the second is its simplicity."
"Cuts VM deployment down to seconds and cuts latency under MS with amazing performance and very stable operation with no worries about how much it can handle."
"It has good stability for our company."
"The most valuable feature is replication."
"Everpure FlashArray is very user-friendly, easy to learn, and makes it easy to identify issues while providing more redundancy on both the controller and host sides."
"I would rate the stability of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series as a ten."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions, and it's also easy to use."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series has impacted my organization positively, and I would estimate approximately 90% improvement."
"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, and it integrates pretty well."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"I love the SnapMirror and autonomous ransomware protection features."
"Their dedupe functionality is probably the best in the industry. We also find their support model to be good. When we purchase something, we have a very good understanding of how long that product will be supported by them. That helps."
"The main impact of NetApp ASA on my organization is that my data is available 24/7."
 

Cons

"There's always an opportunity for new feature functionality."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"It is way in excess of what we need. If anything, we could see a bit more speed. I'm just comparing it with what some of my colleagues who are implementing their own systems do."
"They could improve the price."
"The price could be better."
"When we were doing some tests, we found that there was an I/O freeze when they were switching the controller."
"I would like to see the NAS add-on component become more fault-tolerant than just a single virtual machine running inside the array. I'm unwilling to use it for that reason."
"I would appreciate improvements on daily health checks."
"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."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"The solution could be more scalable, although it suits our present needs."
"Scalability on rack-mount servers is not as good as with Blade servers."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."
"While it is a reliable product, it could be improved. It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."
"The areas of NetApp ASA that could be improved include features such as the active sync feature that allows a customer to write on either data center A or data center B."
"From a partner's point of view, the tools that I'm using to create the quote or do the sizing are very slow."
"I'm handling pre-sales and post-sales. From a partner's point of view, the tools that I'm using to create the quote or do the sizing are very slow. The tools, such as hardware universe, fusion.netapp.com, and partnerhub.netapp.com, operate very slowly. These tools should be more efficient as they enter a hung state repeatedly."
"NetApp ASA is somewhat expensive, and I believe they should work on the pricing aspect."
"I would like to see more in terms of replication between storage classes. They provide different lines of storage. They have a lower class. They have a capacity class. They have their enterprise class. Currently, we have interoperability at the same plane with ONTAP, but we would like to see some more mix-and-match features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pure came in at a better price point than EMC and performed better than Compellent."
"I would rate it a seven out of ten for pricing. It could be improved."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"The licensing is $100,000."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray could always improve. They are still more expensive than some alternative offerings. Cost is always a concern and when there is a battle they tend to be more expensive."
"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."
"Because the price is a bit higher than other products, the data reduction equalizes the price with amount of the data reduction."
"All storage is expensive so any price improvement would help."
"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."
"All of the features are bundled together, and you can renew the bundle with all of the features included."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."
"The pricing is fair and low compared to other products in this category."
"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."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"It is an expensive solution."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
"It is pretty good. It is definitely cheaper than Dell EMC. It is cheaper than Pure. It is cheaper than VAST. It is definitely cheaper than HPE. The only one that is on par with NetApp's pricing for enterprise customers is IBM."
"It's more expensive than other storage vendors such as Dell, Pure Storage, HPE, Lenovo, etc. It provides the value, but some of the customers don't look at the value. They first look at the cost. It should be reduced by 20% to 30%."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
No data available
 

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?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is very good because we are a Lenovo partner. For installation ...
What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series can be improved with a 25 gigabyte connection or 100 gigabyte connection.
What is your primary use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series?
My main use case for Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is storage for our infrastructure and replica with another data cen...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp ASA?
I am not much aware of the pricing of NetApp ASA, but I estimate a NetApp ASA system could cost several hundreds of t...
What needs improvement with NetApp ASA?
NetApp ASA is somewhat expensive, and I believe they should work on the pricing aspect. I understand that pricing can...
What is your primary use case for NetApp ASA?
NetApp ASA has three or four main use cases including mission-critical applications, SAN environments, block storage,...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
ThinkSystem DE Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp ASA and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.