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Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs NetApp NVMe AFF A800 comparison

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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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (6th)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp NVMe AFF A800
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
18th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
Mark Richmond - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Tanveer Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
A scalable solution that serves as a storage for the cloud services opted by organizations
My company uses NetApp NVMe AFF A800 as storage for our cloud The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O. The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to see additional…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"The solution uses newer technology for deduplication and compression."
"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."
"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."
"We are satisfied with the stability."
"One of the most valuable features of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is the snapshot feature."
"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."
"Scalable and stable storage array."
"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."
"The price of this solution is good."
"The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload."
"The storage features are valuable."
"Low latency is the most valuable feature."
"NetApp NVMe AFF A800 is easier to use than some other solutions and the UI is very good to use for day-to-day activities. Overall, the solution has good technology."
"Over the eight years, we've been using NetApp with ONTAP, we've never lost a bit of data, and we've only experienced a few minutes of downtime in that entire time."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O."
"You can easily scale up, and scale-out."
"The product can be scaled vertically as well as horizontally."
"During the use cases of the solution, its reliability and suitability are the best."
 

Cons

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."
"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."
"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."
"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."
"Right now, the box itself is just strictly working as a backend storage system. It would be fantastic if we could access it directly like a NAS device through network access or SIS drives. I think they have an interface, but I am not sure how good it is. If we could address a box directly on the network without having to go through a server, it would be great. The replication schemas could be improved. We are not using replication on the storage level right now. We use a different type of replication. If their replication would be as good as the one that we have, I would probably run the replication schema because it might be faster, but I don't know that for a fact. So, I cannot say that they have good replication. All I can say is that they need to inform us better."
"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."
"Efficiency improvements would always be welcome, but I'm not sure if they could get more efficient."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."
"The licensing model needs to be revisited. It needs to be simplified."
"The solution should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements."
"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."
"Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed."
"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."
"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The initial setup should be easier, and more like a plug-and-play approach."
"Stability is an area with a certain shortcoming where the solution needs to improve"
"The support can take a few days to have a response. However, the response that we do receive is very informative."
"Increasing the RAM, and including physical cords would be beneficial."
"The cost of the solution is quite high. It would be ideal if they could adjust it so that it's a but less."
"The product’s UI could be better."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 product is expensive."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"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."
"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 support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"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 is highly-priced."
"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."
"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."
"There are licenses for the use of this solution, such as commercial licenses."
"Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive."
"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
"Considering the requirements and the situation, I don't feel that this is an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Educational Organization
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
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...
What do you like most about NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a product that is fast and provides a fast I/O.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
Though NetApp NVMe AFF A800 may seem like a highly-priced product, it is not extremely expensive.
What needs improvement with NetApp NVMe AFF A800?
The product's performance has some shortcomings, making it an area that could be a little better. I don't expect to s...
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
ThinkSystem DM Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
Information Not Available
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Find out what your peers are saying about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs. NetApp NVMe AFF A800 and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.