We performed a comparison between Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series and NetApp AFF 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."This solution has improved our organization in the way that we used to see latency but now with this solution we don't. It also has good performance. Latencies have come down for our performance in the SQL databases. We can put a lot more in a lot less in terms of space savings. We also save data center space have good deduplication."
"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 most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."
"We also like the compactness, the small footprint. It takes up very little space in a data center and uses little power."
"We can store more for a cheaper price as opposed to paying for larger devices and larger rack spaces which get outdated sooner and which we'd have to change every two years. It simplifies storage for us."
"The connections are a lot faster than what we had in the past. One InfiniBand does what we did on all of our Fibre Channels."
"The performance of the storage is just unbelievable."
"Pure Storage is extremely reliable — it's never failed."
"The solution is very easy to troubleshoot. It's one of the most valuable features. It also doesn't take long to deploy and normally it comes with a three-year warranty."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is simple to use"
"The solution is very easy to set up."
"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."
"Its initial setup process is easy."
"This solution is good for virtualization and meets the need for CPU and RAM requirements."
"We have been working with the solution for around a year and so far it has shown itself to be stable."
"The most valuable feature of AFF is that it offers better visibility and control over performance, ensuring it meets customer needs effectively."
"Snapshots, snap clones, backups, flexibility, and agility are valuable features. I like that NetApp AFF is easy to use. We can automate everything for our backups and use cases. It's fast and simple, and provides storage to all of our VMware ESX hosts. It expands easily as well."
"Data efficiency is the most valuable feature because of the dedupe and compression."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of management."
"Even though the complete workload will fill out the AFF storage box, it will give us sustained stability."
"I actually did major projects where we used NetApp storage for some government agencies, and we were able to keep the storage where the government or the customer is able to own the storage while using AWS as their computing. That part was helpful to the customer."
"In terms of the footprint, it is far more efficient. It has smaller, higher-capacity drives than our older unit. In terms of space, power, and cooling, it has simplified things."
"The speed is great. That's probably number one in terms of features we appreciate."
"I would rate this solution an eight. To make it a ten it would have to be a little cheaper."
"Just some nit picky stuff, like allowing servers and volumes to be grouped. Therefore, it would easier to work with them in the GUI."
"Beyond a certain amount of petabytes, you have to have a separate system. Basically, it's not infinitely scalable."
"The initial setup of the product is complex."
"I would like to see them lower the costs."
"We understand that they're thinking about it, but one of the things that would be nice is if they added some basic file-level capabilities to the platform. The idea is that they would run a basic NFS or CIF share from the controllers. FlashBlade is the powerhouse for File and Object storage, but if you don't need all that power, a lightweight file function would make FlashArrays more versatile."
"I would rate this solution an eight. There's always room for improvement, nobody is perfect to get a ten out of ten. They do what they do well. It's not cheap but we it's for uses that we needed."
"It would be nice if Pure had something in its portfolio that provided higher deduplication and compression for backups."
"It would be useful to have structured solutions replicated to other sites."
"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."
"Improvements can be made to the product's performance."
"Its performance could be faster."
"There could be a snapshot feature in the solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Hyper-converged infrastructure."
"ThinkSystem could be better integrated with backup software like Commvault, Veritas, or Symantec."
"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 only downside to NetApp AFF is its price."
"Its technical support could be better."
"Additional performance, additional data efficiencies, that's what everybody wants right now."
"I really don't have anything to ask for in this regard, because we're not really pushing the envelope on any of our use cases. NetApp is really staying out ahead of all of our needs. I believe that there were firmware issues. I think it was just a mismatch of things that were going on. It could have possibly been something in the deployment process that wasn't done exactly right."
"I would like to see a little more flexibility in customizing some of the SnapMirror stuff. We have been having a little trouble and, in the first round with tech support, they say, "Well, this is how we do it." It's not exactly throttled but it's limited in the number of connections it makes. We would like to be able to tweak that, to increase it a little bit, because we don't have half a dozen large areas that we are protecting, we have more like 40 or 50 areas. They run into each other a little bit and I don't want to spend time on them."
"To enhance the already excellent administration, one area for potential improvement could be in terms of integration."
"I would like it to be an IP as our network is mainly IP-based."
"Offering the ability to actively write data on a single volume spanning multiple clusters is significant."
Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is ranked 20th in All-Flash Storage with 11 reviews while NetApp AFF is ranked 2nd in All-Flash Storage with 280 reviews. Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is rated 8.6, while NetApp AFF is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series writes "Provides good stability and is reliable in terms of performance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of NetApp AFF writes "Since switching, our clients have reported improved performance and reduced latency". Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, IBM FlashSystem, Dell Unity XT and HPE Nimble Storage, whereas NetApp AFF is most compared with Dell PowerStore, Dell Unity XT, Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series, VMware vSAN and HPE Nimble Storage. See our Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs. NetApp AFF report.
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