No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Google Cloud Storage Nearline comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (11th), File and Object Storage (13th)
Google Cloud Storage Nearline
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Public Cloud Storage Services (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is designed for Cloud Storage and holds a mindshare of 3.2%, down 6.9% compared to last year.
Google Cloud Storage Nearline, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 6.3% mindshare, down 10.1% since last year.
Cloud Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)3.2%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise7.2%
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP5.2%
Other84.4%
Cloud Storage
Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Google Cloud Storage Nearline6.3%
Amazon S315.5%
Amazon S3 Glacier10.1%
Other68.1%
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

Parveen Garg - PeerSpot reviewer
Subject Matter Expert at Bureau veritas
Utilizing network data sharing effectively with cost considerations
What should be improved in Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is the costing, as it should be reduced, but that depends on Amazon. To be frank, I don't have much comparison as we don't have a good volume. We have very little volume on the EFS (Elastic File System), which is why I couldn't do much cost comparison. Currently, I'm not aware of the exact costing, but previously I found that the costing was a bit high.
Seamless integration with cloud services improves workflows but documentation needs enhancement
One area that needs improvement is the documentation, which I find to be disorganized and not user-friendly. The lack of comprehensive walkthrough guides for specific use cases makes it difficult to follow. To enhance the experience, more detailed examples, guides, and tutorials from start to finish would be beneficial. Additionally, the cost compared to other providers like Amazon could be regarded as a downside.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The productivity of the customer has improved by around 30% by using Amazon EFS instead of a unique EC2 NFS instance."
"Its elasticity and flexible pricing are the most valuable. For Amazon EFS, you are charged based on the storage. It is also very fast and stable with a very simple and intuitive interface."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The first valuable thing is it is scalable."
"The platform is highly scalable."
"There are huge money savings, as we can save more than half of our costs."
"We need our storage to expand based on demand but storage is a bit costly, so we start with a smaller amount and, as we grow, we use EFS on demand and it manages our costs."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is secure as it is used under VPC."
"The most valuable feature of Nearline is the access. It's helpful to move data that is generated once a month, such as salary information, to Nearline."
"The most valuable aspect of Google Cloud Storage Nearline is its integration with the wider Google Cloud ecosystem."
"I find the flexibility in storing documents or data and the ease of retrieval valuable with this solution."
"There are no issues with the integration of Google Cloud Storage Nearline with other Google services."
"The data structure and the types of data that are supported are very good."
"Nearline is highly stable."
"Google is always introducing new features and tends to have a new release every month."
"The stability is excellent; I can't think of a better service that's provided in South America, and the infrastructure overall is very stable and reliable."
 

Cons

"Initially, the cost of storage seems to be small, but customer cost for the storage is really very high and this doesn't work for India."
"Elastic File Systems can be expensive due to the nature of data transfer costs, using services like SSTP, and potentially being costly in a rate-shift context."
"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."
"There are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption."
"Their response was not prompt, and it took them a while to figure out solutions. While the time to respond was good, the time to resolve was not optimal, as it took more than a week."
"When we faced some issues, the support team took a lot of time to resolve them."
"The product's stability has some shortcomings where improvements are required."
"A notable limitation of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is that it does not support Windows."
"They should provide more options or flexibility in terms of pricing."
"From a storage standpoint, it would be beneficial if the retrieval cost could be optimized, as it is comparatively higher than storage costs in Nearline."
"Documentation is an area for improvement in Google Cloud Storage Nearline."
"Nearline security could be better. The solution could integrate better with SEIM tools."
"The UI could be a little bit more effective."
"The suggestion for improvement primarily revolves around cost efficiency."
"One area that needs improvement is the documentation, which I find to be disorganized and not user-friendly."
"The solution needs to offer better System Information and Event Management (SEIM). I'd like to discover how we could implement something like that within Google's cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is mid-ranged."
"I would rate the pricing 7 out of 10."
"It has flexible pricing. You are charged based on your storage."
"The product's price depends on the services and the size and capacity at which it is used in a business environment."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a pay-as-you-go model, so whenever you use its services, you need to pay."
"The product charges are based on the amount of data stored."
"The main challenge with EFS is its cost, which is slightly higher compared to EBS or S3. For one GB or ten GB of data, S3 is much cheaper. EFS could cost around $30 to $50 per month for similar usage."
"Google Cloud Storage Nearline is very inexpensive. It costs us less than $50 a month to store our files. We use approximately 10 terabytes. Overall, I would rate the product a five out of five for affordability."
"Right now, for the number of servers and the storage that I have, I would say I'm charged between $125 and $150 per month."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Storage solutions are best for your needs.
903,871 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
We don't need to purchase it; we are just using it and paying Amazon as per the utilization. We make direct payments to Amazon based on our usage.
What needs improvement with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number of IOPS limitation. Initially, the number of IOPS that could be performed on the ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Storage Nearline?
My experience with the licensing and cost of Google Cloud Storage Nearline has been positive.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Storage Nearline?
Documentation is an area for improvement in Google Cloud Storage Nearline. Documentation might cause some issues during deployment in future updates of Google Cloud Storage Nearline. Other than tha...
What is your primary use case for Google Cloud Storage Nearline?
I have integrated Google Cloud Storage Nearline with BigQuery for analytics.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Dropbox, Google, CTERA and others in Cloud Storage. Updated: June 2026.
903,871 professionals have used our research since 2012.