Microsoft Azure File Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

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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

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

6th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

All-Flash Storage (6th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), File and Object Storage (4th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 10.8%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 1.4%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

PrashanthR

Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Seamlessly streamlines document processing with advanced file storage and OCR integration

We need to store data over there. We process documents through Kofax Time is a major benefit, as well as ease of processing. With configuration, it happens quite easily, and we can finish tasks early. File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service. This enhances the processing…

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Juan-Contreras

System Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees

Ensures streamlined management, simplified infrastructure, and efficient data handling

It has effectively managed our unstructured data, including audio and video files. We've experienced smooth operations without any complaints regarding uploading or downloading videos. While video usage isn't as frequent, we primarily utilize it for downloading videos related to specific incidents for administrators or our police department. We've encountered no issues uploading files of any kind. Transitioning from VMware to Nutanix has highlighted the overall flexibility of Nutanix's platform. Unlike VMware's three-tier system, Nutanix simplifies the learning curve by streamlining operations. The update process, in particular, has been favorable, with no critical issues encountered. The resiliency of Nutanix hasn't been thoroughly tested in our environment so far. However, I routinely check fault tolerance settings to ensure they meet our requirements. During the update process, I've observed critical errors occur as hosts restart, but Nutanix's self-healing mechanism handles these issues seamlessly. The benefit of using Nutanix is evident in several ways. Firstly, we've effectively compressed our storage while significantly expanding our overall storage pool. Previously, our service had a capacity of twenty-five terabytes, but with Nutanix, we've scaled up to a hundred and twenty terabytes physically and approximately fifty terabytes logically. This expansion has been accompanied by noticeable improvements in performance, particularly with reduced latency and IOPS well within the boundaries of our equipment. All our resources are centralized in a single location for managing and running storage: our data center. We operate three Nutanix nodes within this center, effectively managing everything from one central location. We don't have any other locations outside of our data center running a Nutanix cluster. Nutanix's capability to eliminate silos within our organization's storage infrastructure was discussed during our recent call with the engineer. Although we haven't explored this feature extensively yet, there's a forthcoming project where we anticipate leveraging it.One thing I'd appreciate is having a desktop application similar to what VMware offered. With VMware, I could download a separate client program onto my computer, allowing me to log in directly rather than accessing the host through a browser.

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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

"Integration with the entire Azure platform."

"We have not explored the desktop performance analysis of the file storage, but the user interface, API, and the response that we receive over the file storage are very good. We have a lot of customers that connect to the client-side, click the images, and upload them. The beauty of the solution is that we can mount the file storage into a critical server as well as an external drive. The speed that we receive with the images is pretty good."

"It is very easy to use SSTP and some traditional code to move the data into a database because we can easily use the permissions and we don't have any integration or conversion issues."

"It is a good service for file storage."

"The best part is the accessibility to all the files."

"The most valuable aspect of Azure File Storage is that all the features are available in one place."

"It was quick to synchronize back from Azure to the on-premise server."

"The tool offers a secure way to access storage. You can also easily share the files securely across Azure."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

"The interface is quite simple. It is very good. It is easy to configure. It also has a powerful CLI."

"The scalability, data redundancy, and security are valuable."

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

"The inclusion of it in the Nutanix Objects Storage platform simplifies my process as I am no longer required to acquire a separate platform. Instead, I can simply purchase additional licenses as needed. All management can be performed from a single unified interface, making it a convenient and streamlined experience."

"From an analytics perspective, the best aspect of Unified Storage is its locality. When you read data, you want to know that you're only reading data from the particular local storage node. It's also critical to access the data as quickly as possible from that. From a business perspective, the most important thing is ease of use. Having a combination of compute and storage makes it much easier to manage."

"What I like most about Nutanix Files Storage is the way it makes copies of the data. The solution also has high availability, which is excellent. Another valuable feature of Nutanix Files Storage is self-service, so users won't have to depend on the IT team much."

"They have well-documented best practices and the interface is good."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the Prism Central centralized management console."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

Cons

"It's not very intuitive."

"Considering the enterprise licensing required for the solution, the cost of the solution is an area where the product needs improvement."

"There is a limitation on the storage capacity, like four terabytes. It could be improved to accommodate more data."

"It's a bit complex to set up. Other than that, there is nothing to improve."

"Some of the procedures are a bit more complex in Azure than in other providers."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage needs more integrations. In the future, I also want to see GRC added to the portal. If you enroll or sign up for Azure services, your country may not have GRC available in the portal, so you may have to choose a strange country, for example, Kenya, to activate credit."

"In our use cases, we see the weakness in mobile internet connectivity."

"The provider needs to collect more information about the products."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

"While Unified Storage has evolved a lot over time, its database handling needs to improve a little. There could be an improvement in terms of costs. It's a little expensive for Brazil but still delivers a lot of performance."

"When it comes to Nutanix Files, one thing that would be great is a slightly easier way of managing snapshots and restore points, especially when a third party is involved."

"The graphical user interface could provide more detail. It would be nice if we could click on the service and get some expanded definitions of them. When hiring new people, it's difficult to teach them how everything works, but if they can access everything, they can teach themselves."

"Pricing can always be better."

"The only thing I would say is missing for us it is FTP protocol compatibility."

"Lowering the price would improve this product."

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

"I haven't had any issues with the solution so far."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is a bit pricey compared to AWS and Google."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage has a reasonable price."

"We have Microsoft Azure File Storage's enterprise license."

"There are fewer hidden costs involved compared to other solutions, and when our customer is already a Microsoft partner, they typically have access to more affordable fees."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being the most expensive. It's not cheap."

"The pricing is usually dependent on your storage requirements. Overall, I believe Microsoft Azure File Storage's price is reasonable."

"One of the major benefits for AWS is that they have a very large customer representative base where clients can be picked from, they offer large discounts and credit. We were not able to receive the same kind of offers from Microsoft Azure File Storage. We tried to approach Azure while hiring for our disaster recovery discussion, but we didn't receive anything from Azure."

"For one terabyte of data, we are spending about 150 Euro every month."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

"The solution is highly-priced."

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

"Nutanix offers different pricing options, including Ultimate and Ultimate Pro."

"Nutanix Unified Storage isn't expensive."

"The price can always be improved. As a customer, you always seek reasonable solutions within your budget, and they give us little to do a lot. My IT team always has to justify that we are choosing an optimal solution, so the price could be a little lower Maybe the prices could be a little bit lower."

"While the price may not be the most affordable, I believe it offers good value for the benefits it provides."

"For clients running Nutanix, the licensing cost for Files is a small add-on cost."

"Nutanix Unified Storage is competitively priced. There aren't any competitors that can do much better for the same price."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

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845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

32%

Educational Organization

23%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure File Storage?

The product is a reliable cloud solution.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure File Storage?

The price is almost the same as the competition. I would rate it three or three and a half out of ten on the pricing scale.

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.

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

Nutanix Unified Storage isn't expensive.

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

The dashboard could be more customizable

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Comparisons

Compared 48% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 19% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 19% of the time

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

Compared 18% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 5% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Also Known As

MS Azure File Storage

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

Overview

Fully managed file shares that use the standard SMB 3.0 protocol

Key scenarios:

Share data across on-premises and cloud servers
Migrate file share-based applications to the cloud with no code changes
Integrate modern applications with File storage
Simplify hosting for high availability workload data

Microsoft

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

Talon, Camden

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

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)