No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp EF-Series All Flash ...
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
29th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 6.7%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is 1.6%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray6.7%
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series1.6%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays1.4%
Other90.3%
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.
Tayo Olubanke - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at GCET
Offers flexibility and top-notch technology
You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Their REST API is wonderful, well-documented, and easy to use."
"Everpure FlashArray has reduced downtime in some situations, reduces downtime considerably, and can help perform upgrades or replacements of certain hardware or its firmware without shutting the machine down."
"We experience fast demos and zero downtime; we do not experience any downtime with Pure Storage, thanks to resilience with Safe Mode, integration with backup software, and everything related to cyber resilience."
"I would recommend Pure Storage FlashArray to other users because, first, the speed that I get with Pure Storage FlashArray is not remotely possible with any other product at this price range, and second, the support is absolutely fantastic."
"The most valuable feature is that maintenance is free."
"Pure Storage has the right business model and will be around for a long time."
"For me, right now, it is the best storage solution in the market, by far."
"Even if they weren't one of the fastest arrays in the entire industry, I would use them for their support model and ease of use."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"ThinkSystem is a good offer and can work out well if you can work with it to fit the use cases that you have."
"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 is very easy to troubleshoot, it doesn't take long to deploy, normally comes with a three-year warranty, and has the most features if you compare it to other models."
"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's initial setup process is easy."
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"We have had a very good experience with customer service and support, as they answer questions very fast and resolve our issues."
"We use it for our VDI environment, and have not had any complaints with it."
"Compared to Dell Unity XT, what I see as an advantage in NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is the fact that it is more scalable...The performance of the product is good."
"Our use case is both corporate storage and for all of our datacenter and back-end enterprise applications."
"For anyone who has critical workloads like Oracle databases or DB2, NetApp All-Flash Arrays will suit their needs, as long as it fits within their budget."
"Having the option of such high-speed storage in the data center is what makes it valuable."
"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."
"Our batch processing time went down from 14 hours to seven hours with this solution."
"We found all of those things in NetApp."
 

Cons

"The cost of the storage needs improvement."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"They should work on their upgrades, they're not smooth."
"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"The system has dual controllers but does not have a high level of resiliency built-in."
"Self-backup is the only feature lacking in this solution."
"I would like to see some improvements on the FlashBlade side around the CIFS space support. I am not super familiar with all the different NAS protocols that they run on their box, but there could be some improvements made on SMB CIFS side."
"The initial setup was a little complex. We had some initial issues with the design and had to help correct some of the white papers for it, but it wasn't your standard use case."
"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."
"The type of connection that is used in Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series should be improved."
"You can not buy a lot of options for these devices. There are a lot of things that it does not do."
"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."
"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."
"The features are limited."
"Its performance could be faster."
"While it is a reliable product, it could be improved. It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"It was difficult to implement and lacks some additional features that would be useful, but as a solution fits a particular need for our organization."
"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."
"Monitoring and management handling in enterprise environments could be improved."
"From a manageability perspective, I like the look and the feel of the FAS series better than the EF. I think it's more straightforward and simplistic."
"It says NetApp on the badge, but it’s not a NetApp product."
"As far as the manageability, being able to port between the two and have to do less training in-house from a customer point of view, that would be the part to improve."
"I would like to have the ability to replicate data between All Flash and other NetApp storage systems."
"Nonetheless, there are a couple of other things that NetApp hasn't done right."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"The price of the solution is not expensive."
"When you are paying more than you were paying for the storage space, you'd like the cost to be less. If they could get into the spinning disk kind of cost, that would be it."
"The price was slightly higher than others, but competitive, if you consider all the other features that you get from it."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"The licensing is $100,000."
"We purchased a license to use this solution and we pay for the storage ourselves."
"When I last looked, the prices were reasonable, and we could get an excellent array for about $60,000."
"The best thing about this solution is its price, which reduces our costs."
"The solution's price could be better."
"The pricing for this solution is good compared to HP or Dell EMC."
"We have a five-year contract for providing support."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution."
"For an all-flash setup, the cost is around $20,000 for a decent configuration."
"Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."
"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."
"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."
"This solution is not available to many users because the cost is very expensive."
"Adding more capacity will increase the cost."
"Price-wise, NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is costlier than Dell. You have to buy a lot of licenses separately."
"It's a way to get relatively low-cost, very high-performance, low-latency block storage as a point solution."
"NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is an expensive product."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

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 Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise18
 

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...
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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
ThinkSystem DE Series
NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation
Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.