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Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs VAST Data comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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

Pure FlashArray X NVMe
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
15th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
6th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), Public Cloud Storage Services (6th), File and Object Storage (4th)
VAST Data
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
20th
Ranking in NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
8th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 1.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 5.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays
 

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature
One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.
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.
Alan Powers - PeerSpot reviewer
Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years
The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I use the tool for Oracle databases, Oracle virtual machines, and Oracle Linux databases. I'm on the storage side, not a database administrator."
"I appreciate the performance."
"Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"The initial setup was extremely simple and straightforward."
"Offers excellent features like efficient data reduction, a reliable SafeMode, and a great support model for continuous assistance and updates."
"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."
"The tool's valuable features are speed, security, data compression, and reliability. Its data compression feature is the best that we have ever seen. It helps us to save money and resources."
"It's helped us because we've changed fundamentally what we talk about. We don't talk about storage and different tiers of storage anymore nor do we talk about servers. We talk now about applications and how applications impact the business and end users."
"The most important point is the simplicity of the API integration. We can leverage the API integrations and connect our hybrid-cloud network environment with Nutanix's cloud storage."
"The solution is very easy to manage."
"Nutanix Unified Storage is easy to use. New employees are able to come up to speed fairly quickly with regard to the day-to-day administration processes."
"Nutanix Unified Storage is a simple, user-friendly, and stable solution."
"Unified Storage's centralized management features enable us to accomplish whatever we want in terms of operations and migrations."
"We can utilize mixed storage block-sized objects and combine various databases within a unified interface."
"The capacity is very good. They use fewer nodes than before. Each node is isolated with the CPU with the performance. It is a cluster node but works separately, so the performance will be tripled."
"My opinion is that this solution has very good stability."
"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."
"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."
 

Cons

"The software layer has to improve."
"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."
"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."
"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing of the product."
"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."
"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."
"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."
"The biggest thing for me, which is a pet peeve of mine, is the integration with the hardware platforms."
"Its interface is very simplistic. It is a good thing for people because of the ease of use, but at times, I find it too simplistic. It is hard to find advanced options. They should eventually expand it and provide additional drop-down lists or menus with advanced feature sets."
"The interface is not logical. It should be a little simpler."
"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."
"I haven't had any issues with the solution so far."
"Unified Storage failed to fulfill our object storage requirements."
"The GUI is easy to use, but it's complex to do tasks from the command line. That is one way they could simplify things for the engineers. People tend to use a graphical interface more than the command line interface. If anything goes wrong, we need to do troubleshooting from the CLI. It would be nice if there were more ways to fix issues within the GUI."
"Lowering the price would improve this product."
"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."
"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."
"The product is expensive."
"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."
"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."
"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."
"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."
"Compared to other solutions, NUS is cost-effective and efficient. It also has good performance."
"The product has an annual licensing fee."
"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 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."
"From what I hear from the management, Nutanix Unified Storage has comparatively decent pricing."
"If we compare the cost of Nutanix Objects Storage to other solutions such as VMware licenses, our current choice is Nutanix Objects Storage. This solution is more cost-effective. However, adding VMware to Nutanix would not be a cost-efficient decision, which is why we do not use it anymore."
"It is quite expensive otherwise as it comes with three-tier peer underlying hardware."
"For clients running Nutanix, the licensing cost for Files is a small add-on cost."
"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."
"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
32%
Educational Organization
23%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.
What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?
Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...
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 do you like most about VAST Data?
The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VAST Data?
Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one.
What needs improvement with VAST Data?
The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement.
 

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X
Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. VAST Data and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.