In this paper, transient response of commensurate fractional-order systems with non-zero initial conditions is investigated in the viewpoint of the existence of deviation from initial condition. In particular, firstly peak effect for a class of linear fractional order systems is inspected by presenting a lower bound for their responses. Such a lower bound is described by an elementary function, where the commensurate order of the system is considered as a rational number. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that under particular circumstances the derived lower bound can be extended to apply for deviation analysis in response of a class of fractional-order nonlinear systems. Moreover, included are various illustrative examples intended to assess the applicability of the obtained lower bound in prediction of the deviation value and the time instance at which the peak effect occurs.