Cohesity SmartFiles vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

Cohesity and Nutanix are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Cohesity is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0, while Nutanix is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7. Cohesity holds a 0.5% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Nutanix’s 3.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cohesity users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cohesity SmartFiles and Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Nutanix, Dell Technologies and others in File and Object Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed File and Object Storage Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

September 2025

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Helped 868,759 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.7%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cohesity SmartFiles is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 3.0%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)	3.0%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	5.7%
Cohesity SmartFiles	0.5%
Other	90.8%

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Parul-Patel

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

High performance and throughput enhance IT backup management

The multi-dimensional scale-out design feature of Pure Storage FlashBlade is not in use in our environment. Regarding data reduction technologies, we don't get much deduplication because the data is already deduplicated from our FlashArray before we get to backup, so there is no benefit of deduplication. Regarding the integration with cloud-native ecosystem tools, we are not on cloud; we are strictly an on-premises solution. Pure Storage FlashBlade is not used by any end-user; it's used only for IT backup, with only about four people in our group managing it. I cannot recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other users depending upon their financial situation because it's an expensive solution, and the cost is very high, including licensing and renewal every year. I rate Pure Storage FlashBlade an eight out of ten.

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Stefan-Motsch

Evangelist / CTO at fgnext

Enables effective data management with reliable backup and recovery

Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents. The architecture supports backup, ransomware awareness, and data management on a converged platform, offering triple-protocol access (NFS, CIFS, and S3) while facilitating gradual improvements in access rights management. It allows for redundant setups, with automated backup and recovery options in a cloud environment.

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Amarnath Charugundla

System Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Unified management and cost-effectiveness lead to positive experiences and future savings

Improvement is necessary wherein the memory or storage should not breach 90%, because if breached, it becomes unmanageable. We have to set alerts or CPU triggering for 95% for the first warning. Other activities on nodes or file systems should be properly maintained. We must monitor the dashboard for P1, P2 alerts in the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) file share system including SMB, NFS, objects, and blocks. Attention should be maintained for any alerts such as CPU, memory, and RAM alerts, as exceeding these creates issues within teams. If triggered to 95% and forgotten, it crosses the SLA breach, causing disturbances to application, web, and platform teams. Continuous monitoring on the Nutanix dashboard is essential. Even a highly experienced person in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cannot provide a 10 rating out of 10 because it is a vast system. I would rate it eight from my perspective.

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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

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents."

"The benefit for our customers is cost effectiveness. The customer is spending substantial money refreshing NetApp storage. We identified a use case from a NAS point of view. Using Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) helps in reducing costs, as they are not spending a dedicated cost for storage procurement."

"We appreciate how Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) performs very well. We appreciate being able to have the duplication of the data to a secondary location."

"What I appreciate most about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is how easy it is to use and how simple it is to create new volumes and containers, and it's pretty quick."

"The benefit that our clients see is the security of the whole Nutanix platform where they have simplified usage."

"I strongly recommend Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) to all users."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward. With a few clicks, you can stand up your storage. It reduces the overall life cycle of deployment within the ecosystem."

"What I found to be the most valuable features were better performance and uptime."

"The feature that I find most useful in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is the integration with Nutanix Move where you can seamlessly integrate it into your storage."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

Cons

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platform failure. It's not suitable for applications needing high I/O or low latency."

"Since it's part of Prism, I might suggest integrating the management console into Prism instead of having a separate console; that's the only change I would recommend, and it's not a significant issue."

"The graphical user interfaces could benefit from more attention to detail."

"The dashboard can have more details and be more useful."

"Perhaps when it comes to deploying NUS virtual machines on top of CVMs, it should not be necessary for it to be in all of them or they should require fewer resources on the servers."

"A more consistent flow of information would improve the solution, as I've noticed some inconsistencies, mostly stemming from the coordination between the hardware vendor and Nutanix."

"From a management side, the one thing I would prefer is if it were a bit less expensive for smaller enterprises. It's a bit costly. If they provided flexible modules where you could pick and choose features, and only pay for what you use, that would be an improvement."

"The integration feature with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) could be improved, maybe into a more stabilized version."

"The problem is that we need to invest a lot of money to get AI, and therefore, we are not going to purchase AI right now."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"It's definitely a lot cheaper than buying a new EMC array. We bought a five-year commitment on all the hardware and software. I don't know what the cost was back then, but I do remember it was cheaper."

"The solution's pricing is fair."

"The licensing currently works based on a software license. If we have files, volumes, and other licenses combined, that would be more valuable. I don't want to go for a separate license for files and a separate license for volumes. We have unified storage, so the licensing should also be unified. That would be helpful."

"Nutanix Unified Storage was cheaper than other solutions we evaluated."

"The solution is highly-priced."

"The licensing model the tool has is cheaper than an HCI storage solution."

"Nutanix Unified Storage isn't expensive."

"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."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

No data available

Computer Software Company

29%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	63

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity SmartFiles?

SmartFiles is an economical solution, priced per terabyte on the backend. Initial setup and licensing costs align wit...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cohesity SmartFiles?

Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platfo...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cohesity SmartFiles?

Our customers use Cohesity SmartFiles ( /products/cohesity-smartfiles-reviews ) in conjunction with Cohesity SpanFS (...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?

It is very cost-effective compared to the traditional environment. With new hardware, it's a long-term investment but...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

The cybersecurity features are used for protecting unstructured data against threats such as ransomware.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

MinIO vs Cohesity SmartFiles

Compared 36% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Cohesity SmartFiles

Compared 25% of the time

Qumulo vs Cohesity SmartFiles

Compared 19% of the time

More Cohesity SmartFiles Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 10% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Storage Fusion vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

September 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

September 2025

Download Cohesity SmartFiles product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

September 2025

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Cohesity SmartFiles is a versatile platform for file sharing, collaboration, data protection, disaster recovery, analytics, archiving, and compliance.

The solution centralizes and simplifies data management tasks, integrating seamlessly with existing workflows and easily scaling to meet growing storage needs. Advanced search, streamlined management, integration, and robust security are key features valued by users.

Cohesity

Nutanix Unified Storage provides high availability and seamless cloud platform integration, ensuring robust redundancy, scalability, and streamlined management. It supports hybrid cloud connectivity, enhancing storage security and performance.

Nutanix Unified Storage is designed for effective data protection across block, file, and object storage, offering features like ransomware detection and a centralized management interface through Prism Central. Users gain improved SLAs and IT cost savings through its efficient performance. Despite its user-friendly interface, there is a demand for enhanced security measures such as Multi-Factor Authentication and DLP. While its resilience is notable, users seek improvements in protocol compatibility, storage capabilities, pricing, and support processes.

What are the most important features of Nutanix Unified Storage?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies storage management and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures continuous operation and reliability.
Seamless Cloud Integration: Compatible with platforms like Azure and AWS.
Robust Redundancy: Protects data against hardware failures.
Scalable Architecture: Easily adapts to growing data storage needs.
Ransomware Detection: Enhances data protection measures.

What benefits and ROI might users find in reviews?

Improved SLAs: Increased service reliability and performance.
IT Cost Savings: Reduces expenses through efficient resource use.
Enhanced Security: Stronger data protection and reduced risk.
Centralized Management: Easier control and monitoring from one dashboard.

Industries implement Nutanix Unified Storage for tasks such as file storage, database performance improvement, and storage solution consolidation. Companies deploying virtual machines, securing against ransomware, connecting hybrid clouds, and backing up data find it useful. It supports workloads like Citrix VDI, Kubernetes, and research data, assisting many organizations migrating from legacy storage for better cost efficiency and reduced data center footprints.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

1. Acer 2. Adobe 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. Aon 9. Apple 10. ATT 11. Autodesk 12. Bank of America 13. Barclay's 14. Bayer 15. BlackRock 16. Boeing 17. BNP Paribas 18. Cisco 19. Coca-Cola 20. Comcast 21. Dell 22. Deutsche Bank 23. Equinix 24. ExxonMobil 25. Ford 26. GE 27. Google 28. HP 29. IBM 30. Intel 31. JPMorgan Chase 32. Kroger

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

September 2025

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