Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

Azure NetApp Files and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP are both solutions in the Cloud Migration category. Azure NetApp Files is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.3, while NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0. Azure NetApp Files holds a 14.6% mindshare in CM, compared to NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP’s 14.9% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Azure NetApp Files users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP users who would recommend it.

Azure NetApp Files

Read 17 Azure NetApp Files reviews

1,025 Views
66 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 62 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

1,095 Views
582 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Azure NetApp Files

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and Azure NetApp Files compete in cloud storage solutions. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP appears to have an edge in pricing and customer support, while Azure NetApp Files stands out for its advanced features.

Features: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is known for its data protection, flexibility, and integration with multiple cloud environments. Azure NetApp Files integrates seamlessly with Azure services, performs well, and scales effectively.

Room for Improvement: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP needs better documentation, GUI enhancements, and expanded feature sets. Azure NetApp Files requires improved cost management features, better support for diverse workloads, and refining cost-related features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP users report an easy deployment process and high-quality customer support. Azure NetApp Files users find the deployment within Azure straightforward but seek more personalized support.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is cost-effective with quick ROI, especially for hybrid cloud environments. Azure NetApp Files, although more expensive, offers substantial ROI for intensive use cases due to its performance and integration.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure NetApp Files vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure NetApp Files vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

May 2025

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Helped 860,168 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

Azure NetApp Files

Ranking in Cloud Migration

8th

Ranking in Cloud Storage

8th

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Cloud Migration

1st

Ranking in Cloud Storage

2nd

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

7th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (14th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 14.6%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 14.9%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Migration

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar13

Cloud/Data/Database Manager at a government with 10,001+ employees

Fast, reliable, and helps meet our SLAs

The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes. It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable. You don't need to take the snapshot. Snapshots are compressed. It doesn't take storage from the back end. It takes three minutes to do sixty terabytes of the database. You don't have to go to the tape and store it outside, which takes hours and hours. It also uses a lot less of the storage. It's very easy to restore or copy the snapshots to other locations for disaster recovery. There are a lot of benefits. In terms of the snapshot's rapid restore capability, we were testing the load of performance testing, and we needed to rebuild the DR site. If I need to rebuild the DR for a standby database, it takes sixty terabytes to copy onto the another site, which will take at least a day. Now, the snapshot is easy. We just copy the snapshots, and then we do the cross-region application. The snapshots came along with that, and that's where we were able to build the DR site within a few hours rather than days. All together, instead of a four-day process, instead of a day.

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Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution

The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

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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

"Using NetApp Files got us out of a really difficult situation quickly, effectively, and at a reasonable cost."

"The most valuable features of the solution is replication to another region and the performance. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. The initial setup is straightforward."

"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."

"The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring downtime, which is a strong point. Based on the money spent, we can get performance improvements and high availability."

"One aspect of Azure NetApp Files that I truly appreciate is its remarkable performance capabilities."

"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."

"The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes."

"It has saved a lot of time. Because in the older, conventional hardware system, they need to raise a ticket to go to storage engineering, then storage engineering would increased the size. Now, it's dynamic. You don't have to do anything. This improved the time by more than 50 percent."

More Azure NetApp Files pros

"The Cloud Manager application that's on the NetApp cloud site is easy to use. You can set up and schedule replications from there, so you don't have to go into the ONTAP system. Another feature we've recently started using is the scheduled power off. We started with one client and have been slowly implementing it with others. We can cut costs by not having the VM run all the time. It's only on when it's doing replication, but it powers off after."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of file storage."

"Multiprotocol is the most valuable because Amazon was not able to provide us with access to the same data from Linux and from Windows clients. That was our value proposition for CVO, Cloud Volumes ONTAP."

"The feature which I like the most is that it has the capabilities that the traditional storage system offers. It provides all the functionality. The deduplication and compression work exactly like ONTAP's traditional storage. So people who have experience with that find it very easy to manage."

"It's very easy to set up, and within 40 minutes, you can apply storage notes in Azure."

"It makes sure we have control of the data and that we know what it's being used for. The main thing for us is that we need to know what applications are consuming it and responsible for it. The solution helps us do that."

"If you have a larger amount of data than normal in cloud, it is easy to provision and maintain. Waiting for the delivery of the controller, the configuration of enclosures, etc., all this stuff is eliminated compared to using on-premise."

"If anything happens, their technical support will come onsite and fix it."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"This solution would be improved with more innovation."

"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."

"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."

"Azure NetApp Files could improve by being more diverse to integrate better with other solutions, such as Splunk and the on-premise version. There are some use cases that are not covered natively by Azure. It is not the best solution because it is not external from the cloud which for me is the best type of solution."

"We would like to have backup functionality built-in so that we don't run into the issue where the replication process makes a copy of the corrupted data."

"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."

"I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill. So I can imagine that, not this year, but next year we will be talking about looking deeper into ways how we can optimize the cost."

"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."

More Azure NetApp Files cons

"There is room for improvement with the capacity. There's a very hard limit to how many disks you can have and how much space you can have. That is something they should work to fix, because it's limiting. Right now, the limit is about 360 terabytes or 36 disks."

"I'm very happy with the solution, the only thing that needs improvement is the web services API. It could be a little bit more straightforward. That's my only issue with it. It can get pretty complex."

"The solution is not stable when using single nodes. This is a problem. NetApp should work on this solution to make it more stable with HA nodes and resolve this issue."

"It definitely needs improvement with respect to clustering and with respect to more collaborative integrations with Azure. Right now, we have very limited functionalities with Azure, except for storage. If CVO could be integrated with Azure that would help. When there is any sort of maintenance happening in the cloud, it disrupts the service in Cloud Volumes ONTAP."

"The integration wizard requires a bit of streamlining. There are small things that misconfigure or repeat the deployment that will create errors, specifically in Azure."

"The encryption and deduplication features still have a lot of room for improvement."

"I would want more visibility and data analytics where we can see anomalies within the shares within the GUI."

"I think the challenge now is more in terms of keeping an air gap. The notion that it is in the cloud, easy to break, etc. The challenge now is mostly about the air gap and how we can protect that in the cloud."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is double the price of the premium disks, which is the main reason why customers don't go for this solution in the end."

"NetApp is a premium offering, so it's not a cheap product, but it is well-priced. It combines a couple of properties which customers like us are willing to pay. Could it be cheaper? Yes, but if you combine fully supported, fully managed, easily provisioned, scalable, and quick all in one product, it's a good selling point. You can ask a lot of money for all these. If you have a use case like we do, it's a perfect match. It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud. It is totally worth the cost."

"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."

"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."

"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."

"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."

"The price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

More Azure NetApp Files pricing and cost advice

"We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."

"The standard pricing is online. Pricing depends. If you're using the PayGo model, then it's just the normal costs on the Microsoft page. If you're using Bring Your Own License, which is what we're doing, then you get with your sales contact at NetApp and start figuring out what price is the best, in the end, for your company."

"Make sure you investigate what your requirements are going to cost you using the native cloud solutions versus what NetApp is going to cost you, to make sure you have a business case to go with NetApp."

"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."

"Cost is a big factor, because a lot of companies can't afford enterprise grade equipment all the time. They skimp where they can. I would recommend that they improve the cost."

"If we wanted to use the AWS solution, we would have to manage two or three different platforms and pay more money than what we should have to pay, as some of the features don't even exist. If we wanted to, we could use AWS cloning, but it is useless because it uses more space, is more expensive, and takes more time."

"The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Educational Organization

29%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?

Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...

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What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?

The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure NetApp Files?

It is expensive, especially with NetApp Ultra Storage.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 36% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 8% of the time

Nasuni vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon FSx vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp ONTAP vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 3% of the time

More Azure NetApp Files Competitors

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 9% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon FSx vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 6% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure NetApp Files

June 2025

Download Azure NetApp Files product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

June 2025

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

Azure NetApp Files is designed for unstructured data, virtualized SAP systems, SQL backups, NFS and CIFS protocols, Azure Virtual Desktop storage, and optimizing file share services. It supports high performance and networking integration in Microsoft Azure.

Azure NetApp Files offers features such as SnapMirror for data protection, rapid provisioning, elastic scaling, and ultra-fast SQL backup and restore. It provides a seamless experience with fast snapshotting, high availability, security, and ease of setup. Users benefit from significant performance improvements and the ability to manage substantial workload migrations effortlessly. This service is ideal for environments like Azure Kubernetes Service and cloud EPM platforms, where speed, flexibility, and performance are crucial.

What are the key features?

Flexibility: Adaptable to diverse storage needs.
Rapid response time: Ensures quick data access and operations.
SnapMirror: Provides replication and data protection.
SEC compliance: SnapLock ensures regulatory adherence.
Ultra-fast SQL backup: Quicker backup and restore operations.
Elastic scaling: Easily adjusts resources based on demand.
Fast snapshotting: Enables quick data snapshots.
High availability: Ensures consistent data access.
Security: Robust measures for data protection.

What are the expected benefits and ROI?

Performance: Notable improvement in processing speeds.
Simplicity of setup: Easy deployment and configuration.
Scalable management: Handles significant workload migrations with ease.
Cost efficiency: Allows comparing throughput versus cost effectively.

Azure NetApp Files is implemented in various industries requiring robust file storage solutions, from educational environments where performance boosts are critical to businesses leveraging Azure Kubernetes Service for containerized applications. It supports high-demand environments, optimizing data management and improving efficiency.

NetApp

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

Azure NetApp Files vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

May 2025

Free Report: Azure NetApp Files vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.

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