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Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File 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
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (3rd), Cloud Storage (8th)
Microsoft Azure File Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 7.2%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 12.9%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Pmurki@Micron.Com Praveen - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 19, 2024
Setup takes minimal efforts and good product to keep files for our ETL process
We use it for ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes. We get files from different tools related to our micro-processing, copy them into Azure File Storage, and then consume them for parsing and loading It's good overall. We just use Azure File Storage as a way to keep files for our ETL process.…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."
"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."
"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."
"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."
"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."
"The initial setup is very seamless."
"The solution is user-friendly and integrates easily with web apps."
"The profile management option is another valuable feature that allows us to manage the profiles and secure them."
"We have not explored the desktop performance analysis of the file storage, but the user interface, API, and the response that we receive over the file storage are very good. We have a lot of customers that connect to the client-side, click the images, and upload them. The beauty of the solution is that we can mount the file storage into a critical server as well as an external drive. The speed that we receive with the images is pretty good."
"I like that we can copy and download data using Azure. It's not just for file storage; we can also use it for large data sets or to host static web applications."
"Azure File Storage gives good value for money, so I don't find it expensive."
"It was easy to set up."
"First of all, the solution is very secure. Secondly, the solution is very fast. It is reliable and available all the time."
 

Cons

"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"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 pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."
"The deployment process is somewhat complex compared to other storage solutions."
"I have used the file storage explorer in multiple systems, and it seems a bit cumbersome and not very efficient, particularly with authentication. It can be tricky to set it up."
"There is room for improvement in helping customers understand and integrate Azure File Storage into their operations."
"Microsoft Azure File Storage needs more integrations. In the future, I also want to see GRC added to the portal. If you enroll or sign up for Azure services, your country may not have GRC available in the portal, so you may have to choose a strange country, for example, Kenya, to activate credit."
"It's not very intuitive."
"The product must provide better security functions."
"Microsoft Azure File Storage is not that easy to use."
"The pricing and technical support could be better."
"Some of the procedures are a bit more complex in Azure than in other providers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"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 price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."
"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"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."
"There are fewer hidden costs involved compared to other solutions, and when our customer is already a Microsoft partner, they typically have access to more affordable fees."
"The licensing cost for Microsoft Azure File Storage comes with an agreement from Microsoft."
"For one terabyte of data, we are spending about 150 Euro every month."
"The pricing could be more flexible."
"We have Microsoft Azure File Storage's enterprise license."
"We pay for both yearly and monthly licenses. The yearly one is cheaper than the monthly one."
"Microsoft Azure File Storage has a reasonable price."
"The price is comparable to other competitive solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
32%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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...
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 Microsoft Azure File Storage?
As for the current licensing and payment structure, it's almost pay-as-you-go. Monthly is okay. But maybe we'll get a better price if we have a long-term contract and pay monthly.
 

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
MS Azure File Storage
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
Talon, Camden
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.