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Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (6th), Public Cloud Storage Services (6th), File and Object Storage (4th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 8.2%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 4.5%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

Lawrence Tse - PeerSpot reviewer
A great solution for fostering the natural expansion of the traditional hybrid culture
Most of the VMware customers I have been engaging with say they have experienced engagement problems. VMware is trying to sell off the VMware enterprise cost and the whole solution is being sold down to a customer, whereas, usually they would try to intentionally avoid talking about the related Windows license. It's not very eye-catching but it's still sizable and we have implemented several Storage Spaces Direct projects for our customers. Currently, we're working hard to replace some of the special storage and hopefully even replace the harder converged storage, etc. Documentation management could be improved. The reason why this product is not being widely accepted by the public is that it doesn't include intuitive streamline, which makes it far from complete. Storage Spaces Direct is powerful and the performance is amazing, but if you need to deliver a high price-performance ratio and visible performance, you need to have expertise in tuning. Many people will not be able to enjoy this opportunity because it's not included in the training. In this case, you need to have a system integrator. A Complete management UI using a web-based interface would be a beneficial feature. They should also use a direct API — currently, they are only using partial API. Often, our customers need to work with other web-based solutions, so they require full API. I am writing my own API for this reason, and our customers are ok with that, but full API would be a very helpful feature that would lead to much more customer satisfaction. Microsoft should provide support for other channels. Microsoft OS supports other channels, but when they become the S2D storage solution, it's very easy to customize the quality. Technically, you can switch channels and replace your storage, but you will need to store away all of the fiber channel equipment, the hardware, and the cables, which can be very expensive.
Juan-Contreras - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."
"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."
"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"They have well-documented best practices and the interface is good."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the unified dashboard, as it allows us to easily observe everything from a single location."
"The product's benefits stem from the ease of use and management it offers to its users."
"Whenever we have some necessity in terms of capacity and expansion of infrastructure, it's like a Lego system where they can just place in some more nodes and our needs are met."
"The solution is easy to use, share, and manage."
"The product's initial setup phase was simple."
"Nutanix Unified Storage does a very good job of unifying our organization's block, file, and object storage. It puts it all in one place. From one platform, we can deploy S3-type buckets. We can provide iSCSI-level block storage if we need to. It does a great job with home folders and departmental shares, which is what we mostly use Nutanix Unified Storage for."
 

Cons

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."
"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."
"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."
"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."
"Documentation management could be improved"
"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."
"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."
"Some of the new features in the tool cannot be used with just one click, as was possible in the past."
"The analytics part of Nutanix Unified Storage is too big and should be made smaller and less resource-hungry."
"The graphical user interface could provide more detail. It would be nice if we could click on the service and get some expanded definitions of them. When hiring new people, it's difficult to teach them how everything works, but if they can access everything, they can teach themselves."
"The only thing I would say is missing for us it is FTP protocol compatibility."
"The implementation is a little bit complex and should be made easier."
"Lowering the price would improve this product."
"The documentation on the support site needs to be improved."
"We have some problems with Nutanix Unified Storage's support because they asked us to change our hardware."
 

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."
"The product is neither cheap nor expensive, making it a solution offering a price range that is in the middle."
"In my opinion, the product is fairly priced."
"Nutanix is very competitive."
"Compared to other solutions, NUS is cost-effective and efficient. It also has good performance."
"The solution’s pricing could be cheaper."
"I am not the one who makes the calls, but it seems to me that it was very competitive. Other solutions would have required dedicated hardware, so an additional CapEx has to be put in place. In that sense, it was definitely a more competitive option to go with Nutanix Files."
"I hope that it will stay the way it is. We have seen the changes in VMware and what happened to them. I have heard that Nutanix will raise the prices, but I hope that they will not do that."
"Nutanix is priced a bit higher than some of its competitors. A lot of Chinese companies like Huawei are entering the Saudi Arabian market trying to provide similar solutions for a lower price. It offers a good value, especially the support. Nutanix has a highly competent team. The after-sales support is excellent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
31%
Educational Organization
27%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

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...
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.
 

Also Known As

MS Storage Spaces Direct
Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.