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

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

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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 File Storage

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

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 April 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 10.8%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 1.4%, 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…

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The profile management option is another valuable feature that allows us to manage the profiles and secure them."

"File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service."

"The initial setup is very seamless."

"The most valuable aspect of Azure File Storage is that all the features are available in one place."

"The solution can scale to fit any requirement."

"It is very easy to use SSTP and some traditional code to move the data into a database because we can easily use the permissions and we don't have any integration or conversion issues."

"The biggest advantage of Azure File Storage vis-à-vis other public cloud storage providers, and why we recommend Azure first and foremost, is that many of our customers have partnerships with Microsoft and so they have access to better cloud economics. Compared to AWS, we have found that (from a customer perspective) Azure is much more competitive."

"This solution supports all file formats."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

"The interface is quite simple. It is very good. It is easy to configure. It also has a powerful CLI."

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

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

"Redundancy and availability are valuable. We have several nodes, so it stays up, and there is redundancy. Then there is availability."

"The most valuable features of the solution are high availability and synchronization to another location."

"They have well-documented best practices and the interface is good."

"The reliability and availability are the most valuable features. Reliability is important because it can run my workloads. I need to be able to take advantage of the VMs that are executing on the storage. It has to be reliable. It's also important to have the storage available for scaling VMs on demand."

"The most valuable features are the interface and support."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

Cons

"Some chunking logics need to be better to address issues with processing bigger files. It should allow better methods for handling large files."

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

"I would like to see more updates around File Storage."

"The product name keeps changing. It can be confusing when product names change frequently, especially with Microsoft. Sometimes, if you refer to a product by a certain name last year, it might have a different name six months later."

"The pricing and technical support could be better."

"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 product’s pricing could be better."

"A lot of things could be better, especially when it comes to accessing File Storage for monitoring. Azure Copy is fine, but there could be additional integration and security features for those who want more privacy and control over access to Azure."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

"For me, personally, it's a little bit slow because there's so much stuff in the underlying layers that even after talking with Nutanix support, I couldn't really grasp it."

"The pricing could be improved."

"I would like to see the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. That could definitely be a major breakthrough in providing a unified, seamless experience for end-users. It could reduce costs as well as human effort."

"There should be more information. If it gets used more by more people, they will have a bigger community to share ideas. It is still kind of newer. It is not as big as Dell and other companies."

"There are some processes, like if I like to change the data storage to another place, I have to use CLI, and I don't like it since I believe that it could have been simpler in GUI."

"The product needs to work a bit more on its ransomware detection capabilities."

"From a management side, the one thing I would prefer is if it were a bit less expensive for smaller enterprises. It's a bit costly. If they provided flexible modules where you could pick and choose features, and only pay for what you use, that would be an improvement."

"The escalation process with technical support could do with some improvement."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing need improvement."

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

"The solution is a bit pricey compared to AWS and Google."

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

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being the most expensive. It's not cheap."

"One needs to pay according to the storage they plan to use in the solution. The payments are to be made yearly. It is usually monthly, but we opted for yearly subscriptions in our company."

"The price of the solution is reasonable. The pricing model is based on usage."

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

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

"We are Nutanix partners, so it is pretty good. With the free terabyte that comes with the Nutanix clusters, we have started to build proposals for the clients. The price adjustment with the new policy of Nutanix Unified Storages seems attractive. Let us see if it has results."

"It is very good. It is much more competitive than a dedicated storage platform."

"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."

"Nutanix Unified Storage pricing is reasonable."

"It is quite expensive otherwise as it comes with three-tier peer underlying hardware."

"My company is in Brazil, and making the payments in dollars is tough for our organization."

"The solution's pricing is fair."

"For clients running Nutanix, the licensing cost for Files is a small add-on cost."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

32%

Educational Organization

21%

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 47% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 20% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 15% 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 19% of the time

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

Compared 18% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

Qumulo 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)