Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

Microsoft and Nutanix are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Microsoft is ranked #8 with an average rating of 6.0, while Nutanix is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6. Microsoft holds a 8.4% mindshare in SDS, compared to Nutanix’s 5.7% mindshare. Additionally, 75% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...

Read 9 Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct reviews

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1,108 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Read 197 Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) reviews

2,194 Views
983 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure and cloud solutions category. Nutanix holds an edge due to its comprehensive cloud integration and simplified management.

Features: Nutanix offers integrated data protection, storage auto-tiering, and high availability, allowing for flexible scalability. Its one-click upgrades and automation capabilities enhance operational efficiency. Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct provides robust storage with distributed file systems and data deduplication but lacks comprehensive cloud integration.

Room for Improvement: Nutanix could enhance support for more hypervisors and improve networking features, along with expanding its third-party software integration ecosystem. Microsoft needs improvements in ease of configuration and a better management interface, as well as comprehensive RDMA support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nutanix is praised for its deployment flexibility and strong technical support. It easily fits both on-premises and hybrid cloud environments. Microsoft faces deployment challenges in multi-environment scenarios due to hardware certification requirements and less responsive support.

Pricing and ROI: Nutanix is considered premium-priced but provides considerable ROI through reduced maintenance and operational efficiencies. Microsoft S2D is lauded for cost-effectiveness, particularly beneficial for organizations heavily invested in Microsoft ecosystems due to Windows Server license integration.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

January 2025

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Helped 838,640 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 Storage Spaces Di...

Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)

8th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)

3rd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

197

Ranking in other categories

HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 8.4%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 5.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Stanislaw Mielicki

Solution architect at Netland

Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support

I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

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MahendraPanchotiya

Infrastructure Manager at ER Tech Pros

Offers a unified platform, reduces downtime, and simple updates

Nutanix offers a unified platform for managing databases, virtual machines, and applications. This simplifies management by consolidating everything into a single interface. While Nutanix may have a higher upfront cost compared to other hypervisors, it can significantly reduce the resources needed for infrastructure management. With our previous hypervisor, we needed nearly ten IT personnel. Nutanix has allowed us to streamline our team to just three members. We use a combination of database technologies, including SQL databases and web servers such as IIS, BHP, and NGINX. Nutanix features helped our organization reduce downtime. I don't recall the last time we had downtime related to Nutanix because it is such a stable product. Nutanix, a reliable product, helps us streamline our processes, which in turn improves company revenue. We began to see the benefits after two years, with a 40 percent reduction in operational costs. We migrated 200 servers from AWS to Nutanix. Nutanix may not consolidate applications, but it helps us run them more efficiently on its platform. Updating is simple with one click. I would rate the updating processes 10 out of 10. Adding compute and storage on demand is not difficult. However, we need to factor in the existing and new firmware and software requirements.

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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 flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."

"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"Its technical support is excellent."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"One major thing that comes up again and again is stability. Our downtime is literally based on hardware upgrades that need to be done. Acropolis is very, very user friendly. You don't have to physically have a super IT guy to manage the system. You can actually give it to a younger guy to manage and there won't be problems. And if he makes a mistake, it's very, very easy to fall back and sort out the mistake."

"Maintenance is not required for Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure"

"There are a lot of things I really like. Perhaps the best part is taking a snapshot of a virtual machine. It's very quick. Another useful part is replication and creating a protection domain: using the protection feature to replicate a machine to a remote site for DR purposes."

"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it has centralized management."

"I definitely find the reduced power consumption very valuable. Another aspect I really like, when one compares Citrix to VMware, is the interface where you talk directly to your VM from the present software."

"It has a single pane of glass and you don't have to jump around various toolsets."

"The scalability is great."

"The level of statistical performance data that it can confirm in real-time is extremely useful. I can see what my VM’s hosts and guests are doing from a single pane of glass and identify issues before they would otherwise become apparent."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pros

Cons

"The integration is not difficult because there is no GUI, but we need to use a PowerShell command. This makes it difficult to monitor and to see the components' statuses."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."

"Documentation management could be improved"

"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."

"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"For the company process, the price is too high. We need to purchase add-ons for the extra key and extra terabyte."

"The process of migrating from old hardware to new could improve."

"In terms of what I would like to see improved, I would say the life cycle management. I don't know if it is because they changed to an LCM from the previous way of upgrading the hardware or software but sometimes it feels that it needs a wizard that says, "Check this, check this," telling you your options. The only thing that's a bit frustrating for me is the life cycle management interface. That's the only thing on the entire system that frustrates me."

"Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve by adding some NAS features, similar to the ones that are available in the NetApp solution."

"Our client had some old Citrix Xen servers for which there is no direct migration. Nutanix has a move utility for Microsoft Hyper-V clusters or VMware clusters. You can easily migrate them using the move utility, but the Xen clusters cannot be migrated in a simple way. That is the only thing that is lacking, but nowadays, no one uses the Citrix Xen server for their clusters. Everything else is already there. Nutanix keeps on upgrading its hardware's or hypervisor's capability to be able to support new technologies."

"While the customer support is truly incredible, for Spanish speakers it would be appropriate to have support in their native language to further improve problem-solving conditions."

"It would be fantastic if there was a built-in layer, in Nutanix, that acted like a cloud interface. So far, we need to integrate a cloud interface on top of Nutanix for billing the usage for specific customers' domains. It would be great if a cloud gateway was built-in, inside Nutanix."

"In the future, I would like Acropolis to add support for publishing external storage."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."

"We are aware of the pricing since we renew every year, at almost $100,000 per year."

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure’s pricing is very good and competitive."

"The price of Nutanix is lower than other products."

"It's a cost-effective solution"

"Cost-wise, it is very good. It is like the hypervisor cost is not there. We only need to pay for the system and AOS licenses."

"Nutanix Acropolis AOS price includes no additional costs for features."

"When we purchase a new physical server or a couple of physical servers into our cluster, we always purchase it with Nutanix licensing. We are receiving the license from Nutanix directly and not from the vendor. In the way we're dealing, with the licenses it is a bit costly for us but as the company is getting larger, day by day or year by year, those licensing costs become lower each time for us. We are purchasing the licenses for three years for some of our clusters and for some others for five-year licenses and the licenses are still costly. We have good discounts for the licenses, but it is still expensive."

"The solution could be a little less expensive."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Educational Organization

36%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Its technical support is excellent.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addition of software assurance.

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

See all answers

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?

Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 66% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 11% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 8% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 6% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

VxRail vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 9% of the time

VMware vSphere vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 7% of the time

Hyper-V vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

February 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

February 2025

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report

Download Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) product report

Also Known As

MS Storage Spaces Direct

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis

Overview

Storage Spaces Direct uses industry-standard servers with local-attached drives to create highly available, highly scalable software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays. Its converged or hyper-converged architecture radically simplifies procurement and deployment, while features like caching, storage tiers, and erasure coding, together with the latest hardware innovation like RDMA networking and NVMe drives, deliver unrivaled efficiency and performance.

Microsoft

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure.

NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

AOS storage
Flexible and open compute
Automated and secure networking

Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

Integrated disaster recovery
Full-stack lifecycle management
VMware with Nutanix
Intelligent operations

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.
Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.
Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.
Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.
Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.
Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.
Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).
Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.
Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.
The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.
The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.
Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

Reviews from Real Users

According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

January 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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