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Azure NetApp Files vs Google Cloud Storage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 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

Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Cloud Storage
7th
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (3rd)
Google Cloud Storage
Ranking in Cloud Storage
2nd
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 6.8%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Cloud Storage is 10.2%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Naresh Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers great reliability to users
Protection is an area in the product where improvements are required. If big companies want to use the tool for protection purposes, like security, which is a big thing people are looking for nowadays. Sometimes, the tool's user interface automatically puts all the files in a different place, making it a bit difficult to go deep and figure out in which folder a file is present. I need to search for a file and drill down to be able to find it. There are a few bugs in the tool, as with all content management tools, since the solution is usually used to deal with huge amounts of content. If the flow of the documents is huge, the tool might get slow for the end users, or when the data is being migrated or imported into the tools.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its security and ease of use are most valuable."
"One aspect of Azure NetApp Files that I truly appreciate is its remarkable performance capabilities."
"Azure NetApp Files has been stable."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"The most valuable features of the solution is replication to another region and the performance. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. The initial setup is straightforward."
"I like the SnapMirror feature in Azure NetApp Files. It helps me create backups with snapshots and makes data recovery and compression."
"It has saved a lot of time. Because in the older, conventional hardware system, they need to raise a ticket to go to storage engineering, then storage engineering would increased the size. Now, it's dynamic. You don't have to do anything. This improved the time by more than 50 percent."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its flexibility."
"Google Cloud Storage includes Docs, calendar, Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Meet."
"On the phone, I appreciate how seamless it is."
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"It's a stable enough solution."
"We are satisfied with the parameters of Google Cloud Storage."
"Everything I store in the solution is available on all of my devices."
"Its performance and security features are valuable."
"Some of the most valuable features are how convenient and easy to use this solution is. It's very user-friendly and meets all my requirements."
 

Cons

"I would like to see multi-zone redundancy so that I don't have to worry about it. I just back up my data to that one SMB share and I know that it's replicated to a different region."
"The main area for improvement is in the support ticket system. Since it's a SaaS platform, support tickets are managed by Microsoft or NetApp backend. This can sometimes lead to cross-functional challenges for organizations."
"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"Azure NetApp Files could improve by being more diverse to integrate better with other solutions, such as Splunk and the on-premise version. There are some use cases that are not covered natively by Azure. It is not the best solution because it is not external from the cloud which for me is the best type of solution."
"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"The main hurdle in promoting this solution is the price. Its price definitely requires an improvement. It is more expensive than other options, so customers go for a cheaper option."
"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."
"We would like for the files which are coming in that we can version them. So, if a file is accidentally deleted, there should have a recycle bin option where we can go back, and at least once, clean it up."
"Google Cloud Storage could improve by having better integration with Microsoft Office files. When I open a Google document I would like it to be able to be opened with Microsoft. You can already open Google documents in Microsoft Office."
"One area for product improvement would be better synchronization across regions."
"Its security should be better from the data security point of view. It should be more secure, and it should get tightly integrated with products such as Google Docs and Google Sheets. Microsoft covers different kinds of tools such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel."
"Google Cloud Storage could improve the integrations in a way Microsoft Azure is going about it. For Data Lake integrations, Microsoft Azure has a bunch of native pipelines available. All Google needs to do is add the same set or maybe even improve on the sets that they have. All the analytics, including the Data Lake, would then be able to sit in Google Cloud Storage."
"I'd like the solution to integrate better with other clouds, including the Apple cloud."
"The price of Azure products is high. In my opinion, the prices of Google solutions should be lowered for businesses."
"I would also like to be able to use my own tools and packages within this solution and also have a tool to visualize the data with graphics."
"I want the product to be available at a cheaper cost."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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 pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"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."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"In the cloud, pricing depends on how you manage it. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's all about optimizing charges and showing the cost back. So, it's more about managing the expenses rather than being inherently expensive or cheap."
"The price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."
"We pay a monthly subscription."
"I just use the free storage that comes with Gmail. I have 15 gigabytes."
"The solution is free unless you want to increase the GB data allowance. There is a cost if you want to increase the size of storage space which is expensive."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the product price as a nine to ten out of ten."
"They know that the pricing is comparable with Azure, AWS, and those other solutions like Amazon are cheaper, but they are not as flexible."
"If you want a shared file system, you have to buy a server with the minimum capacity of one TB."
"I pay monthly for Google Cloud Storage. It could be cheaper, but for now, it's okay."
"The product pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
35%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
74%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
Comms Service Provider
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud Storage?
Depending on your setup, Google Cloud Storage is economical, especially if you do not need high stability and scalability. We use it for backup, so the storage that is not used often is affordable.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud Storage?
So far, when it comes to security, it meets our needs and requirements, so I have nothing to say about improvements to their services. I do not find any areas needing improvement currently.
 

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
1. Adobe 2. Airbnb 3. Amazon 4. Apple 5. AT&T 6. Baidu 7. Cisco 8. Coca-Cola 9. Dell 10. eBay 11. Facebook 12. Ford 13. Google 13. HP 14. IBM 15. Intel 16. JPMorgan Chase 17. LinkedIn 18. Lyft 19. Microsoft 20. Netflix 21. Nike 22. Oracle 23. PayPal 24. Pinterest 25. Qualcomm 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Tesla 29. Toyota 30. Twitter 31. Visa 32. Walmart 33. WeWork
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. Google Cloud Storage and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.