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Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon FSx comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (10th), File and Object Storage (12th)
Amazon FSx
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (5th), Cloud Storage (15th), File and Object Storage (17th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
Parveen Garg - PeerSpot reviewer
Subject Matter Expert at Bureau veritas
Utilizing network data sharing effectively with cost considerations
What should be improved in Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is the costing, as it should be reduced, but that depends on Amazon. To be frank, I don't have much comparison as we don't have a good volume. We have very little volume on the EFS (Elastic File System), which is why I couldn't do much cost comparison. Currently, I'm not aware of the exact costing, but previously I found that the costing was a bit high.
MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group
Shared storage capabilities provide enterprise value with good reliability
Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS. The auto-scaling feature should be improved, as it currently includes downtime. I need to manually increase the storage, which is not ideal. Integrating FSx with Windows Server is challenging; it's a long process involving Active Directory (AD) setup and synchronization.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's extremely stable and has good performance."
"It upgrades in place which means we'll be using it well into the future."
"Lone segmentation is simpler and more agile. It's improved the velocity in overall provisioning from project to operation."
"The most valuable features are extremely low latency, high IOPS with VMware, inline deduplication and compression."
"We chose Pure Storage primarily because of its combination of performance and ease of use."
"Go with Pure (or a flasher rate which is similar) because of the ease of management and performance."
"The support from Pure Storage Flash Array is amazing."
"We put a fair amount of stress on it because we run sequel workloads and we run web applications where the same web files are hit over and over, and we have had almost zero stability issues with that SAN, which has been really great for us."
"Amazon EFS is extremely stable, as it is managed by AWS."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is secure as it is used under VPC."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"We are not that big of a cloud user. We just use it for the storage of our bytes. The most valuable aspect is the storage."
"We haven't seen any downtime or challenges when using the services."
"The solution is scalable."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy, as per the configurations."
"We used it for disaster recovery perspective behind a number of resources, like batch services and RDS."
"The shared storage capability is highly valuable."
"FSx operates as an independent service, not tied to any server, which eliminates dependencies between applications for storage."
"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Amazon FSx a ten."
"I rate the stability of Amazon FSx ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"It was a little costly. The price was ultimately higher than both of the other solutions that we evaluated. I'd say that's the only downside."
"The only minor issues that come to mind are that, every once in a while, a hard drive will go bad. Also, the solution should be cheaper."
"This product has only two active controllers, whereas other solutions can have more. This is something that needs to improve."
"I think the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray is the major issue because all the great things come with the price, and a lot of customers simply are not willing to accept it."
"In the next version of this program, I would like to see increased security, higher encryption, and faster throughput."
"I would like to see active replication. I know that it's available now but I haven't tried it yet. I hope that it works."
"I would like to see additional features like performance monitoring, configuring alerts, and the customization of alert thresholds."
"Pure Storage FlashArray has not helped decrease the total cost of ownership."
"Amazon EFS is more costly compared to other storage options available from AWS."
"It could be better in connecting with Windows Server instances."
"Specifically, when it comes to the file system for the learning system, we encountered performance issues with both Azure and AWS."
"Around 80 percent of the features of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) are available on Linux and not in Windows, making it a major drawback of the product."
"The deployment is definitely not an easy process."
"The product's stability has some shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The user activity needs to be more connected and not required to connect to a PC or a device."
"What should be improved in Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is the costing, as it should be reduced, but that depends on Amazon."
"A direct FTP feature would be beneficial instead of relying on transmission services."
"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."
"I've been facing a challenge when doing a failover from FSx side. AWS console does not refresh within a half hour."
"From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for higher IOPS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very reasonable when compared to other solutions."
"We have seen a reduction in the TCO, because Pure Storage is partnering with Belfrics. This partnership reduces our latency and space."
"I would prefer that they lower their pricing."
"The pricing is an issue. However, being all-flash, it will always be sort of expensive."
"When you are paying more than you were paying for the storage space, you'd like the cost to be less. If they could get into the spinning disk kind of cost, that would be it."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"They have a standardized fee; it's been the same price for 10 years straight. I am happy with the price — I think it's good."
"There is an annual or perpetual license required for this solution."
"The solution's price is mid-ranged."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a pay-as-you-go model, so whenever you use its services, you need to pay."
"The product's price depends on the services and the size and capacity at which it is used in a business environment."
"The product charges are based on the amount of data stored."
"I would rate the pricing 7 out of 10."
"It has flexible pricing. You are charged based on your storage."
"The main challenge with EFS is its cost, which is slightly higher compared to EBS or S3. For one GB or ten GB of data, S3 is much cheaper. EFS could cost around $30 to $50 per month for similar usage."
"The lowest price I have paid is $370 or $380 per month, while the highest can exceed $3,000 per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I have knowledge about the licensing part, which we obtained for around 10 years from the time of deployment, but I d...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
When it comes to Everpure FlashArray ports shown in the GUI, it would be better if, when one of the Pure array ports ...
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 pe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
We don't need to purchase it; we are just using it and paying Amazon as per the utilization. We make direct payments ...
What needs improvement with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number o...
What needs improvement with Amazon FSx?
From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for highe...
What is your primary use case for Amazon FSx?
Our customers mainly use Amazon FSx for high-performance computing. Our customers are mainly in the Life Science and ...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon FSx?
There is an ongoing project where my customers are exploring the FSx solution, but not yet for AI-driven projects; th...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
Neiman Marcus, T Mobile, Docxellent, Matrix, Lyell
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Amazon FSx and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.