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Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Azure NetApp Files comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Ranking in Cloud Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (9th)
Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Cloud Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (3rd), Public Cloud Storage Services (8th)
 

Featured Reviews

Shailesh Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 6, 2024
Useful for storing details of projects and has an easy configuration
The solution is useful for storing details of our internal projects The solution is pretty interesting. It is a very useful product for engineering. That is why we chose it. We can run code and deploy it whenever we want. I understand the configuration. The integration of EFS with other AWS…
Feb 22, 2022
We can expand our storage on-the-fly without the need to reprovision
Ease of provisioning: It's very easy to consume the product. We are not doing this manually. We are doing this programmatically, but it's very easy and seamless for us to consume it. It's like any other Azure component. It's very good and well-integrated into the ecosystem of Azure. There is tight integration. We didn't need to learn anything new. It feels like we know everything already, although under the hood, the product is something totally different. However, it seemed very easy for us. It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something. The performance is quite good, so it's almost on par with the make of SSD storage. It provides a quick, scalable storage solution. We were looking for a supported solution. We didn't want to experiment. We didn't want to look for open source, though we did look into open source initially before we bumped into NetApp. We figured out that adding yet another unknown into our system was not going to bring us benefit. It would be another problem that we would need to tackle. So, we said, "Okay, let's look for a supported solution," and NetApp was one of them. Then, we turned to NetApp.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate Amazon's extensive range of services, which makes it a favorable choice."
"We are not that big of a cloud user. We just use it for the storage of our bytes. The most valuable aspect is the storage."
"The platform is highly scalable."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most beneficial feature of the product for data storage stems from the fact that it serves as a shared file storage."
"The first valuable thing is it is scalable."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy, as per the configurations."
"We can run code and deploy it whenever we want."
"The critical features of this solution are SnapMirror for replication, data protection, and SnapLock."
"Using NetApp Files got us out of a really difficult situation quickly, effectively, and at a reasonable cost."
"Azure NetApp Files has been stable."
"The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring downtime, which is a strong point. Based on the money spent, we can get performance improvements and high availability."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"We use Azure NetApp Files mainly for backup."
"It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something."
"You can change it non-disruptively. You can increase the size and decrease the size online, which is a huge benefit compared to Azure disks. It just works seamlessly. You don't need to stop the instances."
 

Cons

"When we faced some issues, the support team took a lot of time to resolve them."
"The user activity needs to be more connected."
"The lack of transparency in the costs attached to the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Around 80 percent of the features of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) are available on Linux and not in Windows, making it a major drawback of the product."
"The deployment is definitely not an easy process."
"It could be better in connecting with Windows Server instances."
"Its deployment process could be faster while installing the Python package directly into the environment."
"The product's stability has some shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."
"The solution needs to improve it's ABS environment."
"I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill. So I can imagine that, not this year, but next year we will be talking about looking deeper into ways how we can optimize the cost."
"Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"I don’t like the solution’s configuration and support."
"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a pay-as-you-go model, so whenever you use its services, you need to pay."
"The product's price depends on the services and the size and capacity at which it is used in a business environment."
"It has flexible pricing. You are charged based on your storage."
"The solution's price is mid-ranged."
"I would rate the pricing 7 out of 10."
"The product charges are based on the amount of data stored."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"Its price is double the price of the premium disks, which is the main reason why customers don't go for this solution in the end."
"The solution’s combination of the ease of use, simplicity, and reduction in IT management versus the cost has helped a lot. It is very fast to deploy. It's very easy to maintain. You don't have to do a lot in the cloud to maintain this thing, so it gives good performance. It's fast to deploy, easy to maintain, and it gives a better performance. These are the most basic three criteria for any application. This saves cost because the manpower you need to deploy is going down. You're getting better performance and not buying new resources. You have resources available in the cloud. It's just a couple of clicks, then you're good to go."
"NetApp is a premium offering, so it's not a cheap product, but it is well-priced. It combines a couple of properties which customers like us are willing to pay. Could it be cheaper? Yes, but if you combine fully supported, fully managed, easily provisioned, scalable, and quick all in one product, it's a good selling point. You can ask a lot of money for all these. If you have a use case like we do, it's a perfect match. It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud. It is totally worth the cost."
"We are currently on a pay-as-you-go model with the storage that we use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
32%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which file storage system is better - Amazon EFS (elastic file storage) or Azure File Storage?
Amazon EFS is easy to set up: you can use the AWS management console, API, or command-line. Amazon EFS can grow to petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...
What do you like most about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
The product's initial setup phase is easy, as per the configurations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
The product charges are based on the amount of data stored, with different hot and cold storage costs. Cold storage is inexpensive but slower to access.
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?
The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure NetApp Files?
The solution's competitors like Oracle or Amazon are not cheap either. I think we're paying two million dollars for Azure NetApp Files. On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is exp...
 

Also Known As

No data available
NetApp ANF, ANF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
SAP, Restaurant Magic
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Azure NetApp Files and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.