AWS Snowball vs Nasuni comparison

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AWS Snowball

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Nasuni and AWS Snowball are tools in the data management and migration space. Nasuni offers a competitive advantage with its continuous data protection and limitless storage capabilities, while AWS Snowball stands out for secure and cost-effective large data transfer to the cloud.

Features: Nasuni provides unlimited on-demand storage, global file locking, disaster recovery, and continuous file versioning, which ensures data is readily available and secure. AWS Snowball is advantageous for its secure, scalable data migration with strong encryption and end-to-end handling of large datasets, making it cost-effective compared to internet transfers.

Room for Improvement: Nasuni could enhance data replication speed, cross-platform functionalities, and cloud service support. Visibility of backend operations and improvements in single sign-on and mobile access could be beneficial. AWS Snowball could broaden connectivity options, improve international availability, and enhance security during data transit. Also, improving its user accessibility and support responsiveness could make it more beginner-friendly.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nasuni supports hybrid, private, and public cloud environments, praised for ease of deployment and responsive customer support, though some delays exist during non-business hours. AWS Snowball is straightforward in public and hybrid cloud deployments with consistent, accessible support praised for quick responsiveness and resource availability.

Pricing and ROI: Nasuni offers cost-effective pricing based on data capacity, providing solid ROI by reducing infrastructure and labor costs with a predictable cost model. AWS Snowball supports varying organizational sizes with a pricing model facilitating labor reductions and operational improvements, gaining a favorable ROI particularly for large data transfers due to its efficient upfront pricing strategy.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Snowball vs. Nasuni Report (Updated: November 2026).

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AWS Snowball vs. Nasuni

November 2026

Helped 920,574 peers since 2012

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

15th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Migration Appliances (1st)

Nasuni

Ranking in Cloud Migration

8th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

File System Software (3rd), NAS (14th), Cloud Storage (14th), Cloud Backup (30th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (20th), Cloud Storage Gateways (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 2.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nasuni is 5.2%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Migration Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Nasuni	5.2%
AWS Snowball	2.3%
Other	92.5%

Cloud Migration

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis

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.

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ShailenderSingh1

Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Unified cloud file storage has simplified global data management and reduced operational overhead

From an admin perspective, Nasuni has various valuable features. The GUI is very good, upgrading is very easy, and DFS is very easily manageable. Compared with other products, the snapshot feature is beneficial because it creates a snapshot every five minutes, allowing me to provide restores very easily to customers. Data protection is enhanced by the fact that Nasuni uses S3 technology to create snapshots every five minutes and enables versioning, so the snapshot is created and I can utilize that snapshot for disaster recovery or restore purposes. I assess the value of global file locking and caching for reducing latency as good, giving it a five out of five.

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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

"If you have a large amount of data, it's a perfect way to move it to the cloud."

"The way the data is moved is very clever. Also, the interface is very simple and user-friendly."

"The interface is great! It's 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."

"It's a nice way of shipping a lot of data without using a network."

"AWS helps save time and costs, being a managed cloud provider with evolving services."

"The support team's awesome, and they've always been very responsive."

"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."

More AWS Snowball pros

"The biggest and most impressive thing for us is the operational recovery (OR) and disaster recovery (DR) capabilities that Nasuni has. If a filer goes down, or an ESX server goes down, then we can quickly recover."

"The snapshot functionality and the unified file system are definitely the most valuable features for us. The UFS allows everybody across the organization to see the exact same data at the same time, instead of having different file servers with different structures on them, and that's mission-critical. We have different branches throughout our organization that have to act on that data."

"The ability to access anywhere, the ease of deployment, and the security are the most valuable features."

"Nasuni is tremendously easy to manage. It eliminates many of the administrative challenges associated with physical hardware storage, and you don't need to worry about any hardware failure or products reaching the end of their lives."

"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."

"One of Nasuni's best characteristics is its fully redundant system; we don't have to shift tapes or use other backup solutions. It's a good, full-featured product."

"With Nasuni, the simplicity of management is light-years ahead of our previous processes because the old backup and recovery was so slow, and we had to keep growing the SAN as the business grew."

"A big advantage is having the data exist in the cloud, which has certainly relieved a lot of pressure from our IT department in regards to having a backup as well as preventing some ransomware in all of our offices."

More Nasuni pros

Cons

"It's not an easy product to start using for a beginner, but If you're a professional, it's easy to understand."

"The stability of the solution isn't ideal and should be improved."

"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."

"AWS support could be more responsive."

"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."

"24/7 support is more expensive on AWS compared to Azure."

"It's not cheap."

More AWS Snowball cons

"Some applications may not be suited for the Nasuni environment. You may need something with better performance. Otherwise, if you want to run daily operations or some file system, it's a good bet."

"I would like to see Nasuni provide the ability to mirror a Nasuni appliance from one site to another. They could maybe have a standby appliance that is mirrored in a different location for disaster recovery purposes. We can recover if data and a Filer are lost because of a possible ransomware event, but even that takes time to recover. If we had the ability to have a mirrored appliance, we could flip over to that mirrored device and resume instantly rather than repopulate the local appliance with data from the snapshot history in the cloud. This is another feature that we would really like to see, if possible."

"I would improve Nasuni by addressing the performance issues we sometimes face on the base file share, which must be fixed, and granting some leverage to the admin to perform administrator-related tasks without needing to engage Nasuni support for every activity."

"The Nasuni file storage platform doesn't work well when there are a high number of small files. This is the case when a directory structure contains more than 10,000 or 20,000 small files, e.g., 5 KB, 10 KB, or 15 KB. When the user is accessing these files from another geographical location, they might face a slow response or timeouts when connecting to the shares, and then to the files. This is because the file size is small. There is a scope of improvement with this solution when it comes to accessing a large number of small files."

"Nasuni does not support different retention policies within the same volume, so you have to keep creating volumes for retention policies. When you create a new volume, it means you're starting from zero all over again. You can't move data between two volumes. You have to move them from your physical device to Nasuni or your cloud device to Nasuni."

"There is some room for improvement when it comes to monitoring. We are not using Nasuni monitoring. We are using our own monitoring through Xenos. Nasuni can provide better monitoring capabilities for us to monitor all the filers and NMC so that we don't have to use a third-party tool."

"One area that we've recently spoken to Nasuni about is single sign-on. Another is integrating Nasuni with Azure Active Directory. In our particular case, that would allow for third-party consultants to access our Azure Active Directory environment as opposed to coming to our on-premises environment."

"As administrators, we are used to having control equal to managing an on-prem device. In terms of log analysis and other things we want to do, Nasuni has some limitations limitation on what you do on the Nasuni. Nasuni could add some features to the GUI that make administration a little easier. It's tough when I have to move from one filter to another because there is no way to search it. We have to scroll up and down to find the name of it."

More Nasuni cons

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."

"Our agreement is set up such that we pay annually per terabyte, and we buy a chunk of it at a time. Then if we run out of space, we go back to them and buy another chunk."

"There are annual costs that we pay for maintaining all of the snapshot history in the cloud. That is the primary cost that we pay. We occasionally buy newer Nasuni appliances or deploy them to new offices when the need occurs. That capital equipment expenses is less than the cost of buying new file storage systems. For the most part, you are trading a CapEx cost of storage equipment for an OpEx cost for management of all the snapshot data in the cloud."

"It's cheaper than a lot of alternatives but it's not cheap."

"Nasuni pricing is average; it's not too high or too low."

"I would not say it is economically priced, but it is affordable. If you can afford to pay for it, it is worth the money, but it is definitely not overpriced. It is priced about where it needs to be in the market. We were satisfied with the way they did their licensing and how they handled it. I believe they actually license by data size. It is based on how much data is being held on the machine and replicated, and that's completely understandable. So, for us, their pricing was as expected and affordable."

"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."

"It is around $850 per terabyte per year. Any additional costs that you would incur are for the local caching devices that you'll need to access Nasuni. You kind of provide your own virtual machines or compute to access the data. You also pay for the object storage. So, there are three parts to it. There is the Nasuni license per terabyte. You would also pay for the actual object storage in the cloud, and then you would pay for virtual machines to access the storage."

More Nasuni pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	25

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 ...

Google Transfer Appliance vs AWS Snowball

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

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AWS Snowball

October 2026

Download Nasuni product report

October 2026

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball

No data available

Overview

AWS Snowball is an efficient tool providing high-speed data transfers, end-to-end encryption, and scalability to organizations in need of reliable data migration and integration with AWS infrastructure.

AWS Snowball offers robust data transfer capabilities, ensuring efficient management of large data volumes. It provides end-to-end encryption and tamper-evident features, enhancing data security. The interface is user-friendly and supports seamless integration within AWS. Its scalability and flexible integration options make it a valuable choice for managing complex data migrations. Despite the need for improved connectivity and broader geographical availability, continuous innovations and managed services optimize resources and time.

What are the key features of AWS Snowball?

High-Speed Data Transfer: Facilitates quick migration of large data volumes.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the process of data management.
End-to-End Encryption: Ensures data security during transfers.
Scalability: Easily integrates with AWS systems.
Edge Computing: Provides on-site processing capabilities.
Physical Durability: Designed for reliable data transport.

What benefits can users expect when implementing AWS Snowball?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces expenses associated with large-scale data transfers.
Time Optimization: Saves time in data migration processes.
Resource Optimization: Managed services enhance resource efficiency.
Seamless Integration: Supports on-premises to cloud migrations.
Security: Protects data with encryption during transfer.

Organizations across various industries utilize AWS Snowball for efficient cloud migrations and disaster recovery. In fields where bandwidth is limited, Snowball provides a solution for large-scale data transfers. Financial institutions use it for ETL processes and integrating analytical layers over current data warehouses. Industries with data validation requirements appreciate its secure data transfer features and the ability to reduce dependency on internet connections. Its edge computing capabilities address diverse environmental needs, ensuring data accuracy during migrations.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Nasuni provides a robust platform for seamless global file storage, offering unified file management, data protection, and cost-effective scalability.

Nasuni's approach integrates a unified file system with high-level security features, ensuring seamless data access and synchronization. Despite its strong capabilities in data replication and storage, Nasuni faces challenges in integration and small file performance. Users appreciate its scalability and cost reduction but call for enhancements in cloud mirroring, automated load balancing, and multi-factor authentication. Better content visibility, mobile access tools, and refined monitoring are desired to enhance user experience. Organizations utilize Nasuni for global file sharing, disaster recovery, and collaborative data management across distributed teams, effectively replacing older systems.

What are Nasuni's Key Features?

Seamless Data Transmission: Enables efficient data flow across locations.
Unified File System: Centralizes file management for ease of access.
Unlimited Storage Capacity: Offers scalable options with global access.
Data Protection: Continuous versioning and ransomware protection.
Single Management Console: Streamlines administrative tasks.

What Benefits Can Users Expect from Nasuni?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces infrastructure expenses by leveraging scalable architecture.
Data Accessibility: Enhances sync and access across multiple sites.
Improved Collaboration: Supports teamwork across dispersed teams.
Confidence in Data Security: Comprehensive encryption and private key management.

Nasuni is adeptly used in industries requiring robust data management such as finance, healthcare, and media, where file synchronization and disaster recovery are critical. Enterprises deploy it to replace outdated file-sharing systems, enhancing workflow efficiency and data reliability.

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