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AWS Snowball vs Nasuni comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

AWS Snowball
Ranking in Cloud Migration
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Data Migration Appliances (1st)
Nasuni
Ranking in Cloud Migration
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (3rd), NAS (12th), Cloud Storage (14th), Cloud Backup (34th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (18th), Cloud Storage Gateways (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nasuni is 5.6%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Migration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nasuni5.6%
AWS Snowball2.0%
Other92.4%
Cloud Migration
 

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis - PeerSpot reviewer
Global CTO AWS Business Group at Eviden
Seamless data transfer and efficient migration with customizable storage sizes
I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in. The interface for getting my data onto the Snowball is so streamlined. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's really cool. I connect them to the backplane of our existing network. I'm able to address it quickly and move the data quickly inside my customers' data centers. There's a little screen on it, which changes the UPS codes and all that stuff. The label and everything AWS electronic, so I don't have to deal with shipping issues. It makes it super simple and easy to use from end to end.
SD
Infrastructure Architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Cloud data management that achieves cost efficiency with advanced data protection features
I am currently using Nasuni for seismic data. We have a huge data size, and we want to reduce costs. Nasuni acts as a caching solution, so we put some data into the cache, and the rest goes to the blob, which helps us save on costs. We use it for applications like Petrol and Tech Log, where 3D…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS offers managed services which save time and reduce administrative overhead."
"We are a very large company with around 20 million users that include architects, developers, and admin staff, and it's a very nice service we would highly recommend."
"The way the data is moved is very clever. Also, the interface is very simple and user-friendly."
"From our point of view, one of the most important features are the ability to combine, to mesh data together, and the ability to have them compute out of AWS rather than buying our own infrastructure."
"You are able to scale the solution vertically. It's very scalable."
"It's a nice way of shipping a lot of data without using a network."
"The features I like best are the tool's high capacity, scalability, end-to-end encryption for data security, ease of use, durability, and cost-effectiveness. It's particularly cost-effective for transferring large amounts of data compared to high-speed internet transfers."
"If you have a large amount of data, it's a perfect way to move it to the cloud."
"The system has so far been doing an awesome job and working as advertised."
"The solution gives us a breakdown and summary of every resource and each volume within every resource. It tells us the code within a given volume, so I can go in there and look at the size of the files that are stored there. Nasuni gives me the big picture and allows me to connect things like Power BI to any endpoint. I can take that tabular information from Nasuni and look at it in a graph."
"Nasuni is helping us replace multiple data silos and toolsets with a single global file system."
"The most valuable feature is the simplicity of the backup and restore functions."
"The most valuable feature is disaster recovery. We can fully recover a site in two hours."
"I particularly like the restore process. Our financial teams make changes to spreadsheets and other files, and we've got teams using Photoshop files. They make mistakes and need to recover files, and we can do that instantly. We also have users who manage to delete folders, and we can bring them back instantly within a few seconds."
"I can't say anything other than good things about it."
"The nice thing about Nasuni storage is that it is immutable. This means the data is only written once. So, you never modify the files. When you write a file out to the storage, it doesn't modify it when you change it. The technology knows how to figure out what the difference is between the original file write and what the changes are. Therefore, it only saves the changes."
 

Cons

"24/7 support is more expensive on AWS compared to Azure."
"It's not cheap."
"AWS support could be more responsive."
"The stability of the solution isn't ideal and should be improved."
"If AWS Snowball is intercepted, there is a potential risk of unauthorized access to the data."
"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."
"There's always room for improvement as you use the service more and gain expertise. Some challenges I've faced include the time factor (data transfer can be time-consuming), data validation after the transfer, risks associated with physical handling and shipping of the device, and ensuring data security during transit."
"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."
"Its pricing can get a tad expensive."
"The privilege settings need to be more granular, and alerts are an excellent example. If a user doesn't have access to them, they can't see them and access information such as what they may have done wrong, what's there, and when the last sync happened. However, the ability to view alerts also comes with permission to delete them, which is not good, so we need more customization options here."
"When we first set up our bandwidth limiting, we had a few problems when it came to managing it. This is something that could be made easier; however, we were able to make the changes that we needed to for our environment."
"One area that we've recently spoken to Nasuni about is single sign-on."
"We would like to have a user desktop agent to help improve the end-user experience."
"We've had some organizational changes that Nasuni has not been able to keep up with, mainly from a data or file system perspective. Moving a filer from one management console has been a challenge. It lacks the flexibility to move files in and out of the management console. We have six management consoles now, and we're constantly telling Nasuni, "Hey, please allow us to move a filer from management console A to B." They can't do that."
"Some of their cross-platform features are really good, but it could always use more."
"The only thing that I'd like to see is more support for platforms like OneDrive or Box.com."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing depends on the type of Snowball device you choose, the amount of data you need to transfer, and the service fees involved. There’s a standard price for larger data transfers and a flat job fee, which includes the first ten days of on-site usage. Typically, there are no additional data transfer fees."
"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."
"The cost of licensing is negotiated and billed annually per terabyte."
"The pricing is on par with everybody else, and fair."
"Its price is fair and reasonable. I don't have anything negative about its pricing and licensing. For us, there is also the cost of monitoring. We are monitoring through Xenos and not through Nasuni. That is another cost for us from the monitoring perspective, but as far as Nasuni goes, we don't have any other cost apart from the licensing fee."
"There are cheaper forms of storage, but Nasuni is fairly priced for the functionality it offers. I can get basic file shares provisioned in Azure and pay for the storage and the CPU. The overall cost would be much less than Nasuni, but I would need to build the management console and encryption process, so it would cost a lot to develop that kind of functionality."
"The cost is based on the capacity, which is approximately $100 USD per terabyte."
"Nasuni should provide small-scale licenses, like a 20 TB license. Currently, the smallest is a 30 TB license."
"It's cheaper than a lot of alternatives but it's not cheap."
"They could lower the cost, but it saves so much money when you go into it (by losing all the backup)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Microsoft Azure Data Box or AWS Snowball?
Microsoft Azure Databox is a 45-pound, super rugged, tamper-resistant, human-managed hardware appliance that can transfer up to 100TB of data capacity to copy, store, then send to the Azure cloud. ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Snowball?
Depending of what is your priority; UseAWS Snowball if you are heavily invested in AWS or need edge computing features Choose Azure Data Box for smooth integration with Azure and potentially lower ...
What needs improvement with AWS Snowball?
It's difficult to make a comparison and it depends on the customer. When analyzing costs, I must see how the customer uses AWS, Azure, or Google. Google is particularly interesting, for example, fo...
Does Nasuni have a good pricing model?
Based on the experience of my organization, Nasuni is definitely worth the money, since it gives you an all-in-one solution where you'd usually need several programs. About the cost, there isn't a ...
Is it easy to restore files with Nasuni?
As someone who has used this feature of Nasuni I can tell you - yes, it's good for file recovery and you'll definitely benefit from very quick times. I can't tell you if it's the best one because I...
What features and services does Nasuni offer?
Hi, if you pick Nasuni, you'll be benefiting from many services for a good price. Well, it's a personalized price you get after an agreement with the company but in my organization's case, it is a ...
 

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess
American Standard, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, E*TRADE, Ithaca Energy, McLaren Construction, Morton Salt, Movado, Urban Outfitters, Western Digital
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Snowball vs. Nasuni and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.