Microsoft Azure Block Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

Microsoft Azure Block Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

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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

Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

5th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Storage (1st), Cloud Backup (9th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 0.8%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 6.9%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

MatsHagberg Olsson2

Senior Solutions Architect at EQ2 Technology

Empowers secure data management with affordable tools and minimal hassle

The most valuable feature is that it's very affordable in comparison to competitors. The absolute best feature is the Azure Storage Explorer tool. The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease. Additionally, the joint use of Azure portal further facilitates management depending on my location.

Read full review

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at Evolent Health

Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution

The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability seems to be very reliable."

"It has easy versioning. The versioning is amenable to any changes. It also has great security. It can only be accessed through an API, and only the requested users can access it. It is optimized for data lakes and comprehensive data management."

"The solution has introduced cool-tier storage that allows us to store and save data."

"The most valuable part of Microsoft Azure is its scalability and availability, which make it easy to work with."

"In terms of latency, bandwidth, and productivity, Azure Block Storage is better than other solutions."

"One can easily scale with this program."

"The tool is pretty easy to use."

"The solution's most valuable feature revolves around the security-wise functionalities of the tool our company gets from using SAS keys."

More Microsoft Azure Block Storage pros

"Snapshots are one valuable feature within ONTAP, but CVO's appeal is that it acts just like the on-prem solution. It's the same OS, but in the cloud. We can continue to use ONTAP as we did on-premise."

"One thing I have noticed is that it is very simple to move the data where we need to move it, delete it, or archive it if we need to archive it to StorageGRID."

"ONTAP's snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are pretty useful in recovering your data from a time in a snapshot. That's pretty useful for when you have an event where a disaster struck and then you need to recover all your data. It's pretty helpful and pretty fast in those terms."

"The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site."

"The solution’s unified file and block-storage access across our infrastructure is invaluable. Without it, we can't do what we do."

"The initial setup was straightforward. We started with a small pilot and we then moved to production with no downtime at all."

"The stability has been really good."

"It offers ease of use and a comprehensive suite of applications, including features like SnapMirror, SnapVault, and unified snapshot management, all bundled into a single product."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"I have used Amazon's solutions which are better than Microsoft's. However, since I have predominately Microsoft solutions it is a better choice for me to use another Microsoft solution."

"The support response time could be quicker."

"Customer support could be improved, it can be difficult getting appropriate support."

"The performance could be improved, but all the services in the cloud are improved every week."

"The integrations right now are limited, however, we are hopeful this will improve as the cloud continues to develop."

"The platform's technical support services could be enhanced. They could provide better resolution and improve the response time."

"Improving the pricing structure would be beneficial."

"The solution could have better archival policies and localization of data."

More Microsoft Azure Block Storage cons

"I would like to see them improve the perspective of start and search in the panels. This would allow for better visualization of the contents that are captured in the tool."

"NetApp's support could improve"

"How it handles erasure coding. I feel it the improvement should be there. Basically, it should be seamless. You don't want to have an underlying hardware issue or something, then suddenly there's no reads or writes. Luckily, it's at a replication site, so our main production site is still working and writing to it. But, the replication site has stopped right now while we try to bring that node back. Since we implemented in bare-metal, not in appliance, we had to go back to the original vendor. They didn't send it in time, and we had a hardware memory issue. Then, we had a hard disk issue, which brought the node down physically."

"We have used technical support. As long as they don't call me at four o'clock in the morning to tell me that a drive failed and they are sending me another one, I like it. They have a tendency to do that."

"When it comes to support provided by NetApp, they have room for improvement. Every time we go through their support, we end up answering the same routine questions."

"It definitely needs improvement with respect to clustering and with respect to more collaborative integrations with Azure. Right now, we have very limited functionalities with Azure, except for storage. If CVO could be integrated with Azure that would help. When there is any sort of maintenance happening in the cloud, it disrupts the service in Cloud Volumes ONTAP."

"Scale-up and scale-out could be improved. It would be interesting to have multiple HA pairs on one cluster, for example, or to increase the single instances more, from a performance perspective. It would be good to get more performance out of a single HA pair."

"I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage has a fair price. However, the price could be lower."

"The solution is affordable, and we only pay for what we use."

"I would rate the pricing as five out of ten."

"I would rate Azure a three out of ten for pricing."

"For the first 50DB, they cost around $50. It's an open solution for everybody. Anybody can go to the Microsoft website and they can get the pricing for it. But the first 50GB of data is a default rate and then it increases for the next 500GB or something like that. It is a pay as you go solution. The more you use, the more you pay. That's normally how you pay for any cloud solutions."

"I would rate the solution’s pricing a nine out of ten and it’s cheaper than Amazon S3."

"Microsoft Azure Block Storage is not an expensive tool. I'm subscribed to the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program, so Microsoft gives me between $120 to $150 credit each month."

"The product's pricing is reasonable, but premium applications can be costly."

More Microsoft Azure Block Storage pricing and cost advice

"If we wanted to use the AWS solution, we would have to manage two or three different platforms and pay more money than what we should have to pay, as some of the features don't even exist. If we wanted to, we could use AWS cloning, but it is useless because it uses more space, is more expensive, and takes more time."

"It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."

"The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."

"The pricing could be improved. It is a good product, but it is very expensive for me."

"The pricing of this solution is definitely higher than what the typical Azure Files and AWS solutions charge, but given the features and the stability NetApp has provided, we are okay with it. We are not complaining about the pricing."

"We purchased the product directly from NetApp."

"They allow a special price if you are working closely with them. Since we have a lot of NetApp systems, we got some kind of discount. That's something they do for other customers, not just for us. The price was fair. In addition to the licensing fees, you're paying Amazon for your usage..."

"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

53%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Block Storage?

Pricing could be rated as eight out of ten. It is reasonable, however, it can be cheaper.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Block Storage?

At the moment, I do not have anything specific in mind for improvements. The most important thing for me is accessibility and easy provisioning to multiple servers with different vendors.

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Comparisons

Compared 69% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Compared 31% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Block Storage Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 11% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Download Microsoft Azure Block Storage product report

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

MS Azure Block Storage

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

Massively scalable cloud storage for your applications

Store and help protect your data. Get durable, highly available data storage across the globe and pay only for what you use.

Microsoft

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Microsoft Azure Block Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP