Microsoft Azure File Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Download the complete report

Helped 842,194 peers since 2012

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 File Storage

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

6th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

All-Flash Storage (6th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), File and Object Storage (4th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 11.6%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

PrashanthR

Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Seamlessly streamlines document processing with advanced file storage and OCR integration

We need to store data over there. We process documents through Kofax Time is a major benefit, as well as ease of processing. With configuration, it happens quite easily, and we can finish tasks early. File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service. This enhances the processing…

Read full review

Juan-Contreras

System Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees

Ensures streamlined management, simplified infrastructure, and efficient data handling

It has effectively managed our unstructured data, including audio and video files. We've experienced smooth operations without any complaints regarding uploading or downloading videos. While video usage isn't as frequent, we primarily utilize it for downloading videos related to specific incidents for administrators or our police department. We've encountered no issues uploading files of any kind. Transitioning from VMware to Nutanix has highlighted the overall flexibility of Nutanix's platform. Unlike VMware's three-tier system, Nutanix simplifies the learning curve by streamlining operations. The update process, in particular, has been favorable, with no critical issues encountered. The resiliency of Nutanix hasn't been thoroughly tested in our environment so far. However, I routinely check fault tolerance settings to ensure they meet our requirements. During the update process, I've observed critical errors occur as hosts restart, but Nutanix's self-healing mechanism handles these issues seamlessly. The benefit of using Nutanix is evident in several ways. Firstly, we've effectively compressed our storage while significantly expanding our overall storage pool. Previously, our service had a capacity of twenty-five terabytes, but with Nutanix, we've scaled up to a hundred and twenty terabytes physically and approximately fifty terabytes logically. This expansion has been accompanied by noticeable improvements in performance, particularly with reduced latency and IOPS well within the boundaries of our equipment. All our resources are centralized in a single location for managing and running storage: our data center. We operate three Nutanix nodes within this center, effectively managing everything from one central location. We don't have any other locations outside of our data center running a Nutanix cluster. Nutanix's capability to eliminate silos within our organization's storage infrastructure was discussed during our recent call with the engineer. Although we haven't explored this feature extensively yet, there's a forthcoming project where we anticipate leveraging it.One thing I'd appreciate is having a desktop application similar to what VMware offered. With VMware, I could download a separate client program onto my computer, allowing me to log in directly rather than accessing the host through a browser.

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

"It helps us with geo-redundancy."

"It was easy to set up."

"It was quick to synchronize back from Azure to the on-premise server."

"It is a scalable product since it is a cloud solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"It's a stable product."

"General user familiarity with Office 365 products make adopting this solution easy to adopt in production."

"Azure File Storage gives us easy access to cloud solutions at the storage level."

"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."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

"We can utilize mixed storage block-sized objects and combine various databases within a unified interface."

"Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language."

"The product is good, easy to upgrade, easy to use, and user-friendly."

"The benefit that our clients see is the security of the whole Nutanix platform where they have simplified usage."

"Nutanix Objects is reliable."

"The simplicity of management is valuable because, in more traditional environments, the platform updates are much more complex."

"What I like most about Nutanix Files Storage is the way it makes copies of the data. The solution also has high availability, which is excellent. Another valuable feature of Nutanix Files Storage is self-service, so users won't have to depend on the IT team much."

"Nutanix Unified Storage is a stable solution that provides good storage and efficiency."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

Cons

"Firewall rules should be introduced to secure the access date from any virus attacks. Anti-virus should be introduced in the work filtering and document filtering."

"The tool needs to add more controls and enhance Power BI. For instance, I'm just suggesting the visualization layer. Power BI can increase visualization as much as possible, and the product can add more controls to the data flows."

"The transparency of cost should be improved."

"Maybe Microsoft can make it more economical because it is a costly affair."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage is not that scalable. Once you reach the boundaries, you need to migrate to another solution."

"Sometimes it takes very long to refresh the information."

"Lacks integration with other platforms."

"It’s a challenge to find the right support person."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

"The interface could be improved."

"Improving quota policies would be advantageous, particularly by offering the option to implement blocking instead of just issuing warnings."

"We have issues with software updates occasionally."

"We have some problems with Nutanix Unified Storage's support because they asked us to change our hardware."

"The current hardware is not as dense as it could be. In our deployment, we have 2 PB per site, and we have to have 24 nodes. That's a lot of cabling and network ports that we use up. More dense nodes would be better."

"There are still some gaps in the solution's synchronization that could be improved."

"Nutanix should improve the one-click upgrade. There are a lot of dependencies on third-party licenses and HP hardware we use internally. The one-click upgrade fails sometimes."

"There is no tagging concept in Nutanix Unified Storage where you can tag the servers."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is usually dependent on your storage requirements. Overall, I believe Microsoft Azure File Storage's price is reasonable."

"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."

"We pay for both yearly and monthly licenses. The yearly one is cheaper than the monthly one."

"I give the pricing of the solution a seven out of ten."

"The price is comparable to other competitive solutions."

"The price of Microsoft Azure File Storage is expensive, we do not know exactly how the price is calculated."

"The product must improve its price."

"The product's pricing need improvement."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

"The cost of Nutanix Unified Storage can be prohibitive for some small and medium-sized businesses, making it challenging for them to adopt the product."

"The pricing is a bit too high."

"It is not too high for what we are using."

"It's not the cheapest solution. It's in line with other solutions, but it offers features that the competitors don't have at any price point, especially with regard to analytics and ransomware prevention. No one else has any sort of object-based storage available. Nutanix Unified Storage is a lot more feature-rich. This is a situation where you get what you pay for."

"The price can always be improved. As a customer, you always seek reasonable solutions within your budget, and they give us little to do a lot. My IT team always has to justify that we are choosing an optimal solution, so the price could be a little lower Maybe the prices could be a little bit lower."

"I'm happy with the cost and licensing because I don't have big volumes."

"From what I hear from the management, Nutanix Unified Storage has comparatively decent pricing."

"The price of the license is expensive when comparing it to traditional storage."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Public Cloud Storage Services solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

842,194 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

32%

Educational Organization

23%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 do you like most about Microsoft Azure File Storage?

The product is a reliable cloud solution.

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

The price is almost the same as the competition. I would rate it three or three and a half out of ten on the pricing scale.

What do you like most about Nutanix Unified Storage?

Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?

Nutanix Unified Storage isn't expensive.

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

The dashboard could be more customizable

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Comparisons

Compared 49% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 19% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 20% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

VAST Data vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 5% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Also Known As

MS Azure File Storage

Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage

Overview

Fully managed file shares that use the standard SMB 3.0 protocol

Key scenarios:

Share data across on-premises and cloud servers
Migrate file share-based applications to the cloud with no code changes
Integrate modern applications with File storage
Simplify hosting for high availability workload data

Microsoft

Nutanix Unified Storage provides high availability and seamless cloud platform integration, ensuring robust redundancy, scalability, and streamlined management. It supports hybrid cloud connectivity, enhancing storage security and performance.

Nutanix Unified Storage is designed for effective data protection across block, file, and object storage, offering features like ransomware detection and a centralized management interface through Prism Central. Users gain improved SLAs and IT cost savings through its efficient performance. Despite its user-friendly interface, there is a demand for enhanced security measures such as Multi-Factor Authentication and DLP. While its resilience is notable, users seek improvements in protocol compatibility, storage capabilities, pricing, and support processes.

What are the most important features of Nutanix Unified Storage?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies storage management and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures continuous operation and reliability.
Seamless Cloud Integration: Compatible with platforms like Azure and AWS.
Robust Redundancy: Protects data against hardware failures.
Scalable Architecture: Easily adapts to growing data storage needs.
Ransomware Detection: Enhances data protection measures.

What benefits and ROI might users find in reviews?

Improved SLAs: Increased service reliability and performance.
IT Cost Savings: Reduces expenses through efficient resource use.
Enhanced Security: Stronger data protection and reduced risk.
Centralized Management: Easier control and monitoring from one dashboard.

Industries implement Nutanix Unified Storage for tasks such as file storage, database performance improvement, and storage solution consolidation. Companies deploying virtual machines, securing against ransomware, connecting hybrid clouds, and backing up data find it useful. It supports workloads like Citrix VDI, Kubernetes, and research data, assisting many organizations migrating from legacy storage for better cost efficiency and reduced data center footprints.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Talon, Camden

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)