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Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs MinIO comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in File and Object Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (17th)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Ranking in File and Object Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (4th)
MinIO
Ranking in File and Object Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MinIO is 20.4%, down from 24.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
File and Object Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us
The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.
MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Auto-scaling capabilities enhance file management while reducing downtime
The most valuable feature of Amazon EFS is its auto-scaling capability. It's really easy to configure EFS by just creating it and running a command to directly configure it with my servers. It supports unlimited use, and charges are applied based on the file usage at the end of the month. The solution offers reduced downtime and increased durability through its auto-scaling features.
Abdelrahim-Ahmad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good object storage functionalities
MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data. Our company has a maximum of 100 terabytes of data. The solution should provide more bugging tools in the open-source version to encourage people to buy the support services. It's not an easy decision. If I go to the management and tell them that I need to buy a service, there should be an easier subscription model for companies that don't have huge amounts of data. For me, getting a subscription for 15,000 a year for a system already in production might be a bit hard. I think MinIO supports a minimum of one petabyte or 100 terabytes of data. Since we don't have such huge amounts of data, buying a subscription for the solution is a bit difficult. Hence, we're only using the open-source version for now. If MinIO becomes really crucial for our business, we could ask the management to get a subscription.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."
"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."
"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."
"The main feature I have found to be product replication."
"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."
"The product is scalable and easy to expand."
"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"It's very easy-to-use."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The first valuable thing is it is scalable."
"I appreciate Amazon's extensive range of services, which makes it a favorable choice."
"We can run code and deploy it whenever we want."
"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 most beneficial feature of the product for data storage stems from the fact that it serves as a shared file storage."
"Amazon EFS is extremely stable, as it is managed by AWS."
"MinIO can work with attributes and folders, and it has the ability to use a stream approach for files. I have moments that should work exclusively. It also has some management features you can use, like exclusive locks that you can perform on one record or a collection."
"The tool’s integration is very easy. This feature has helped us reduce development time. The solution also has many out-of-the-box features like versioning support and management of roles and permissions. The product also supports clustered deployment."
"The features that I have found most valuable with MinIO is its coding bit rot protection and how it distributes the workload over all the servers."
"Reliable erasure coding."
"The product does save time for our company."
"The most valuable feature of MinIO is its ease of use, replication, and active directory. All the capabilities are in this solution."
"The initial setup was straightforward as MinIO provided good support documentation and took a couple of days to complete."
"Good interface and a good approach to development and testing environments."
 

Cons

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."
"I have not seen ROI."
"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."
"I would like to see more deduplication."
"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."
"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."
"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."
"Its deployment process could be faster while installing the Python package directly into the environment."
"Specifically, when it comes to the file system for the learning system, we encountered performance issues with both Azure and AWS."
"The deployment is definitely not an easy process."
"EFS could be improved by including a one-click setup."
"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."
"The platform's connectivity could be improved to be more comparable to S3 buckets, which offer better API availability."
"The user activity needs to be more connected."
"There are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption."
"With problems, visibility is hard because everything is in containers. Difficult to get to the logs in order to figure out what the problem was."
"Documentation could be improved."
"MinIO has behaved strangely in the past. For instance, the application dropped connection to MinIO. It's not too significant, but it loses connection. We're trying to understand exactly what is happening when this happens."
"MinIO could use a time patch on it. It could also use better documentation for some languages like Python."
"The tool’s pricing needs to improve. We also encountered challenges while deploying the tool in Kubernetes. The documentation also was not too great. We have currently deployed the solution in a stand-alone fashion."
"The solution should have high availability. Also, support should be quick."
"There is a lack of good addons to integrate without having to use third-party applications."
"There should be the ability to expand the size after it has already been deployed. Currently, you cannot do that. It doesn't support an increase in size. Each time we spawn a new MinIO, we need to track the particular MinIO instance or tenant that has the file. Therefore, we had to create a multi-tenant solution that tracks the MinIO that has our artifacts. It isn't in one single instance. It should have better multi-tenancy support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."
"Our licensing is renewed annually."
"The price could be cheaper."
"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"It has flexible pricing. You are charged based on your storage."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing 7 out of 10."
"The product's price depends on the services and the size and capacity at which it is used in a business environment."
"The solution's price is mid-ranged."
"The product charges are based on the amount of data stored."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a pay-as-you-go model, so whenever you use its services, you need to pay."
"This is an open-source solution but I am using the licensed version."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"My company hasn't tried the version of the solution where we need to pay to use it."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"MinIO is a free open-source solution."
"This solution is open source so it is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
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 pe...
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)?
Amazon EFS is more costly compared to other storage options available from AWS.
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...
What do you like most about MinIO?
I like that if you have a problem, you can buy the home server. It is stable and robust.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. MinIO and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
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