We performed a comparison between IBM FlashSystem and Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two All-Flash Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."
"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."
"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."
"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."
"Overall stability is very good. It is a very stable solution."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"The system allows for seamless learning experiences, facilitating quick and easy cloning of environments within minutes."
"The installation is nice and easy."
"IBM FlashSystem is a stable solution."
"The compression and deduplication features are the most valuable."
"The Flash core models offer amazing performance."
"The maintenance service and support from IBM is very good."
"IBM FlashSystem has an easy to use GUI, similar to the IBM Storewize family, which make it one of the best flash storage systems in the market."
"This solution is very stable."
"This solution is really user friendly. It also offers good performance and is highly reliable."
"The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload."
"The FlexClone feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The price of this solution is good."
"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."
"Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability."
"Scalable and stable storage array."
"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."
"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."
"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."
"The tool's portfolio is minimal. It is expensive."
"I would like to see replication and DR features in the next release of this solution."
"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"Our use cases require more multi-tenant capabilities and additional VLAN interfaces for separating different customers. We currently use it to provide storage, sometimes shared storage, to different customers, but it is less flexible in comparison to a dedicated solution."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"The customer's expectations are what they get on the cloud, they're expecting even in the on-premises deployments, going forward."
"Sometimes the performance is effective but it gets resolved in the process."
"The pricing could be improved, but I think it's getting better and better with each version. IBM needs to implement NAS storage again, as this is a big flaw. Dell EMC is very good at this and if you compared them based on NAS storage, Dell EMC would win right away. IBM's solution for NAS storage is very complicated. We don't have a storage box that provides file sharing from itself, we have to put software on it and go through a whole complicated process. It should be simplified."
"When you provision a datastore auto-format takes a long time"
"Product support is restricted to IBM only. It must be decentralized to IBM partners as well."
"The solution is not easy to implement. It takes a lot of time to study the product and it's a little complicated in general."
"IBM could do more marketing and improve brand awareness. I had never heard of this product until a colleague told me about it. FlashSystem could add a few features, but it would probably increase the price. For example, Pure Storage offers instant snapshotting and partitioning. That would be nice to have, but I think the cost would go up."
"With regards to the IBM V7000 storage system, where we have multiple tiers of storage, a heat map would show I/O distribution across the tiers of storage."
"The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series was very hard to configure. Installation of the product was very hard. These are its areas for improvement."
"I would rate the support of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series a four out of five."
"The licensing model needs to be revisited. It needs to be simplified."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve by having a snapshot feature. Additionally, there can be other features added to help restore the data faster."
"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."
"The solution should change the licensing model and allow customers to choose features based on their requirements."
"I would like Lenovo to add a feature like IBM Easy Tier to DM Series. This is a crucial feature for the customers."
"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."
IBM FlashSystem is ranked 6th in All-Flash Storage with 106 reviews while Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is ranked 20th in All-Flash Storage with 11 reviews. IBM FlashSystem is rated 8.2, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of IBM FlashSystem writes "An easy GUI and simple provisioning but our model does not support compression". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series writes "Simple deployment, stores data well, but missing features". IBM FlashSystem is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Pure Storage FlashArray, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, Dell Unity XT and Dell PowerScale (Isilon), whereas Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is most compared with NetApp AFF, Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series, Dell Unity XT, Dell PowerStore and NetApp NVMe AFF A800. See our IBM FlashSystem vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series report.
See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.
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