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Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series vs VIOLIN QV2020 [EOL] 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)
Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (23rd)
VIOLIN QV2020 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
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.
Ramil Cerrada - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution lead at Globe Mobile
Has high-speed data access and processing capabilities, distinguishing it as a leader in its storage solutions category
VIOLIN QV2020 lacks scalability. This affects both the timeframe for installation and the performance of end-users. Additionally, there's a challenge in deploying horizontally, either by deploying between different nodes or adding new ones. We have many customers. 50,000 users are using this solution. It depends on the projects being taken out of the operations team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The back-end data reporting for Pure Storage is phenomenal. The data that you can see on the performance of your customers' array, so you can be proactive about upgrades or enhancements, and is a phenomenal tool to have access to as a partner. I haven't seen this type of stuff out of anything of the other storage systems."
"Having an intuitive user interface to get things running is great."
"The speed is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"Once it's set up, it just runs on its own and only requires the occasional checkup."
"The product cheaper compared to other solutions concerning the technology that they are using."
"The console is simple to use. It has good performance. It is easy to install, understand, and manage, with a good ratio of deduplication and compression. It is doing its job."
"As we needed to grow in capacity, we were able to do so without increasing footprint by replacing smaller devices with larger ones."
"Provides fast access and is user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is its ability to store data well."
"The price of this solution is good."
"The FlexClone feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The servers are fast and affordable."
"In summary, this is a good product and is one that I recommend."
"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."
"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."
"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."
"VIOLIN QV2020 is the latest in terms of performance. It has high-speed data access and processing capabilities, distinguishing it as a leader in its storage solutions category."
"It has lowered batch times from 14 hours to two hours."
"It’s simple to use hardware to fix performance issues. Our issue is poor coding/queries. This greatly speeded things up. It’s too costly to track down poor programming in applications. The price of a developer’s time to scan through all the coding is high compared to buying Violin."
 

Cons

"I like what they're doing, but some of my customers complain that they do not have all the bells and whistles and knobs to fine-tune workloads that some of the competitors have. In my opinion, that's good. All customers don't have dedicated storage gurus, and they can get themselves into trouble if they fine-tune too many of those high-performance knobs, but they do get knocked down. Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE. I personally think 95% of my customers are better off letting the system fine-tune itself. That was something that you needed to do 12 or 15 years ago, but now with all-flash, the technology can handle what it needs to handle. Customers just end up shooting themselves in the foot if they are tweaking too many default settings."
"In terms of improvement, Everpure FlashArray could have more attractive UI/UX design compared to other solutions."
"I would like a feature to integrate with external or cloud solutions."
"Data reduction is an area that needs improvement. There is a garbage collection service that runs but during that time, system utilization increases."
"Part of our company works on Dell EMC because Pure Storage did not have synchronous applications when we were purchasing our products."
"It was not proactive communication."
"The capability from Pure as far as sharing out files and things of that nature is a little bit lacking."
"It was a little costly. The price was ultimately higher than both of the other solutions that we evaluated. I'd say that's the only downside."
"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five."
"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."
"In comparison with other similar solutions, I think this one is the most expensive."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."
"Lenovo could have a wider variety of storage solutions in the NAS space."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The licensing model needs to be revisited. It needs to be simplified."
"VIMM replacement is poorly designed. You have to slide out an entire drawer, remove the cover and then pop out the failed VIMM. I would like to see a front replacement just like with hard disks. This leaves room for error; for example, when you slide it out from the rack, you are moving cables along the cable management arm. This leaves the possibility of accidentally unplugging a cable from the array if it is not seated properly. Also, you might pinch the cables when sliding it back into the server rack."
"VIMM replacement is poorly designed."
"I set up Wi-Fi for storage, and since then, we haven't experienced any interruptions in service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We do not incur additional costs beyond the licensing fee."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"When I last looked, the prices were reasonable, and we could get an excellent array for about $60,000."
"It is a more expensive solution, but it is worth it. You are getting what you paid for."
"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."
"Our licensing is on a yearly basis. So, every year, we renew. We could do a three-year contract, but right now, we only do a one-year."
"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."
"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 price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."
"They will beat anyone’s price right now. They are struggling and just need to get product out their doors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
No data available
 

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 Business13
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
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?
I have knowledge about the licensing part, which we obtained for around 10 years from the time of deployment, but I d...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
When it comes to Everpure FlashArray ports shown in the GUI, it would be better if, when one of the Pure array ports ...
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...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
ThinkSystem DM Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
BlueScope Buildings, GameVil, VRT, IKYU Corporation
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