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

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct 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 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 Unified Storage (NUS)

Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)

4th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

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 March 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 8.3%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 4.8%, up from 1.8% 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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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 flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

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

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."

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

"Its technical support is excellent."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"Management-wise, it has made work a lot easier. It is all in one place physically. It is much better now."

"The solution is easy to use, share, and manage."

"The inclusion of it in the Nutanix Objects Storage platform simplifies my process as I am no longer required to acquire a separate platform. Instead, I can simply purchase additional licenses as needed. All management can be performed from a single unified interface, making it a convenient and streamlined experience."

"The scalability, data redundancy, and security are valuable."

"It is a highly scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature is the unified dashboard, as it allows us to easily observe everything from a single location."

"The most valuable feature is the storage density of the nodes. We went with the HP's low-density nodes."

"Nutanix Objects is reliable."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"When it comes to Nutanix Files, one thing that would be great is a slightly easier way of managing snapshots and restore points, especially when a third party is involved."

"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."

"Managing other storage infrastructure on Nutanix Files Storage is an area for improvement. In particular, I want to add other forms of storage from different vendors not currently in Nutanix Files Storage, to the file server, for better management."

"The dashboard can have more details and be more useful."

"The solution needs to be more open to integration with other vendors. Sometimes, we struggle with the support process. Our skilled engineers must explain our problems to everyone, even though we've already done preliminary investigations. The support team follows standard procedures, which can be painful. We're not a small customer, especially in the life sciences sector, so we'd appreciate more specialized support. I've heard Nutanix Unified Storage has teams dedicated to life sciences and healthcare; we should be part of that."

"The interface 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."

"The analytics part of Nutanix Unified Storage is too big and should be made smaller and less resource-hungry."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The solution is expensive."

"Nutanix is very competitive."

"Nutanix Unified Storage was cheaper than other solutions we evaluated."

"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."

"With all of the Nutanix equipment, the licensing is expensive. We operate in the enterprise space, but we're a midsized company. At times, the price tag is a little bit shocking for a company with only 35 employees. We're not a Fortune 500 company, but we deal with Fortune 500 drug and energy companies. We have to play in that enterprise space if we're going to have enterprise customers. I'm very price-conscious, but I understand that if I want the best, I've got to pay the price."

"The product is neither cheap nor expensive, making it a solution offering a price range that is in the middle."

"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."

"The pricing is a bit too high."

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

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

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842,194 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

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

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 Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Its technical support is excellent.

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.

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

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Comparisons

Compared 65% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 12% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 8% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct 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

VAST Data vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 5% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Also Known As

MS Storage Spaces Direct

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

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 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

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

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