We performed a comparison between Dell Unity XT and Lenovo ThinkSystem DE 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."One of the features that my customers are really interested in is immutable snapshots. There are immutable snapshots to which your applications can be reverted back if you are hit by some kind of ransomware threat or malicious attack. That's kind of a key deal, and it is one of the selling points I use to point out to my customers the value and the features that Pure Storage brings to the table."
"The ease of management is one of the most valuable features of this solution. I would have also said that it's pretty fast but now our SQL servers are starting to beat it up pretty bad."
"It is easy to manage. You don't have to have the same people who used to manage the Dell EMC arrays because the solution is more intuitive."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support."
"The first year, we started out with one or five terabytes and it took what was 20 terabytes of storage down to less than one terabyte."
"It has made working with storage as easy and simple as it should be."
"Cost, racial per terabyte, and speed is why we chose PureStorage. It was no brainer."
"We've had to use tech support on a number of occasions. They did everything remotely and talked us all the way through. They fixed the issue within 30 minutes. Every single time we contact them, they're perfect. I would give their technical support a ten out of ten."
"I like Unity XT's software-defined storage. It's a new feature that isn't widely used yet, but customers are impressed with it."
"We use it to implement all our VDI solutions."
"All-flash is a game changer. If you need performance, simple operations, and you plan to use it with VMware, it is a good choice."
"The Snapshot feature is key."
"There are also DR and data protection functions that we found in the new Unity, now that we are stepping up from VNX and other storage appliances, that we've started implementing."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to provision storage from the CLI, versus having to go in and use the GUI every time. I can just script it out and it will create what I need. That makes it super-easy to manage. Also, for us, it's a set-and-forget. Once we provisioned it out, we haven't had to mess with it."
"It's an all-flash Unity, With that compression feature, it's comparable to a hybrid. That is one thing that we definitely like."
"It is a workhorse and will run even demanding workloads."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"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. It integrates pretty well."
"ThinkSystem's storage performs well, and the price per gigabyte is good, especially on SSD solutions. It's also easy to use."
"Fewer features is not necessarily a negative as it leads to simpler operation and lower price."
"Its initial setup process is easy."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"It would be nice if Pure had something in its portfolio that provided higher deduplication and compression for backups."
"There was some complexity in the initial setup."
"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."
"Part of our company works on Dell EMC because Pure Storage did not have synchronous applications when we were purchasing our products."
"It took us a year to get it to stabilize and to get the best out of Pure."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"The data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we move over, is way lower than the expected reduction. It depends on the workloads, of course. But that has been a challenge at times."
"I would rate this solution an eight. To make it a ten it would have to be a little cheaper."
"They can certainly improve in terms of monitoring."
"Compression and block deduplication on non-all-flash solutions."
"Inline dedup compression security is coming up as an issue, encryption, etc. is key for our customers. If we could have more ways to do software-based encryption, those are the features customers are asking us for, as well as replication."
"The interface can be a little challenging for someone new."
"Dell could improve Unity XT by adding support for NVMe."
"The only issue is with the product's scalability because it's not as scalable as the other polished tools in the market."
"I would like better monitoring capabilities: more historical data with more insight into the performance for the database. We now use a separate tool for it. Therefore, it would be nice if we could have that straight from the tool."
"There is an issue with data duplication occurring on the flash memory. It should be improved. Timely updates and upgrades to the latest versions would be great."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"Its performance could be faster."
"In the next release, I would like to see more functionality. But, again, it is an entry-level product."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."
"The features are limited."
"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."
Dell Unity XT is ranked 4th in All-Flash Storage with 186 reviews while Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is ranked 20th in All-Flash Storage with 11 reviews. Dell Unity XT is rated 8.4, while Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Dell Unity XT writes "Easy to set up with good data compression technology and useful deduplication". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series writes "Provides good stability and is reliable in terms of performance". Dell Unity XT is most compared with Dell PowerStore, NetApp AFF, HPE Nimble Storage, IBM FlashSystem and Huawei OceanStor, whereas Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, NetApp AFF, IBM FlashSystem and HPE Nimble Storage. See our Dell Unity XT vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series report.
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