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Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure NetApp Files
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), Cloud Storage (8th)
Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 7.1%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 0.9%, down from 1.8% 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.
Sultan Ahmad - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to install and offers a reasonable return on investment to users
I use Microsoft Azure Block Storage for our company's VM data needs since it is successful in the areas of APIs. The most beneficial feature of the tool for data durability is that the data on it is redundant and can be kept at two different locations. Microsoft Azure Block Storage's scalability features have not impacted our company's operations. My company has enough storage available in the tool and until now, we didn't require to scale up the storage. Microsoft Azure Block Storage's availability features have supported our company's business continuity plans without any issues. With Microsoft Azure Block Storage's availability features, data is always available to users. A couple of people are required to take care of the tool's maintenance phase. The major duties of those involved in the maintenance of the tool include maintaining the product and dealing with the issues related to the product raised by the clients. In terms of Microsoft Azure Block Storage's performance impact on a project, I saw that the accessibility to local storage it offers is not that fast as opposed to something that is on the cloud. I think it would be a better option to have the tool on the cloud. After moving to the cloud, the performance of the tool increased. I suggest that the tool be used in two different availability zones and I feel that the redundancy is very essential because the data part is very important. The tool offers good options when it comes to redundancy, which I think needs to be utilized properly. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The critical features of this solution are SnapMirror for replication, data protection, and SnapLock."
"We use Azure NetApp Files mainly for backup."
"I like the SnapMirror feature in Azure NetApp Files. It helps me create backups with snapshots and makes data recovery and compression."
"Using NetApp Files got us out of a really difficult situation quickly, effectively, and at a reasonable cost."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its flexibility."
"Its security and ease of use are most valuable."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"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."
"The product scalability is excellent."
"It provides secure cloud storage."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Block Storage are it stores different types of data traditional data and connectivity through FTP. Additionally, we do not need a high-speed fetching system for operations and filesharing works well for us."
"Its integration is very easy."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Block Storage are flexibility and the possibility to trigger actions."
"What I like best about Microsoft Azure Block Storage is the accessibility because it's very easy for me to access it. You'll find different resources and documentation about the tool if you need to learn how to start."
"It has capabilities such as versioning and, from a security point of view, you can also back it up."
"The most important reason we use Azure Block Storage is the ability to store large files. When we were building the solution, we knew we needed to store images and video files that are 100 MBs or more. The second thing is speed when dealing with such large file sizes."
 

Cons

"I don’t like the solution’s configuration and support."
"Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."
"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."
"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"We would like to have backup functionality built-in so that we don't run into the issue where the replication process makes a copy of the corrupted data."
"The deployment process is somewhat complex compared to other storage solutions."
"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."
"There are some space limitations."
"Microsoft Azure Block Storage could improve by allowing the switching of the hot tier to the cold tier."
"The product is not as stable as we would like it to be."
"Azure Block Storage could use more capacity."
"Customer support could be improved, it can be difficult getting appropriate support."
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement. Microsoft Azure Block Storage is priced higher than alternative solutions."
"The stability of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good but could improve."
"We don't delete the other tools from the folder directly. There's no folder deletion option in Azure Block Storage. It would be nice if they could update this."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"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."
"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 pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"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."
"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."
"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
"The price could be more flexible, and it can be expensive."
"The price of scaling the solution is not expensive."
"We pay around $300 to $400 a month for some scenarios where consumption is limited. However, going forward, we're seeing the likelihood of the cost coming to around $2,000 as consumption rises."
"Microsoft Azure Block Storage is an expensive solution and I pay monthly."
"The cost of procuring storage depends on the customer's license availability."
"The storage part costs us $223. That's on a monthly basis for 20TB of data storage."
"The cost is very low. The cost is something like $0.01 to $0.50 per gig. It's pay per use. We have a yearly license."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is less expensive than other solutions on the market, such as Cloud Storage from GCP."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
University
7%
 

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 do you like most about Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
We use the solution to develop SaaS platforms on Azure. We utilize various Microsoft components like block storage and databases for this purpose.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
Microsoft Azure Block Storage needs to improve its migration and reporting processes.
 

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
MS Azure Block Storage
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. Microsoft Azure Block Storage and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.