Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

Microsoft and Nutanix are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.8, while Nutanix is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7. Microsoft holds a 7.4% mindshare in SDS, compared to Nutanix’s 5.3% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct and Nutanix Unified Storage compete in enterprise storage solutions. Nutanix Unified Storage seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced features offering compelling value for price.

Features: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has robust scalability, advanced resilience with automatic failover, and dynamic provisioning. Nutanix Unified Storage offers a unified platform with integrated data services, customizable workflows, and broader edge-to-cloud deployment capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct could improve in customer service consistency, user interface intuitiveness, and expanding comprehensive backup and recovery features. Nutanix Unified Storage has room for improvement in initial deployment complexity, pricing structure flexibility, and enhancement of native monitoring tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct integrates with Windows Server, making deployment straightforward with extensive documentation, though customer service can vary. Nutanix Unified Storage offers a hyper-converged infrastructure for seamless deployment, praised for responsive customer service and streamlined support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct offers competitive pricing, especially for organizations within the Microsoft ecosystem, providing a favorable ROI through reduced infrastructure costs. Nutanix Unified Storage requires a higher initial investment, justified by its comprehensive feature set and long-term operational efficiency, leading to significant ROI through enhanced data management capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

July 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct is 7.4%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 5.3%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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Stanislaw Mielicki

Solution architect at Netland

Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support

I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

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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

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."

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

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

"It's very easy-to-use."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"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%."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Its technical support is excellent."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The main positive impact that Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has had on my company over the years is increasing performance; our checks show it is three times faster than VMware, making us extremely happy and motivated to keep using it."

"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."

"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."

"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."

"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

"One of the main features of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) that I find most valuable is the flexibility and scalability of it, as well as the ability to perform replication for our Disaster Recovery environment."

"I strongly recommend Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) to all users as a modern cloud computing system, offering significant cost savings for clients, customers, and vendors while providing excellent cloud infrastructure operations."

"The performance has been very good."

"The most valuable feature is that it is highly available, solving the pain-point of delaying updates to Windows-based file servers during production hours. And then the second one would be ransomware protection and analytics. It gives you great visibility and protection on your file shares that are otherwise the most common sources of vulnerabilities."

"What I appreciate most about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is the efficiency in terms of storage capacity and reuse."

"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Unified Storage is SMB file sharing."

"The most valuable feature is the easy interface."

"Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is very fast in terms of migration and data access with respect to VM, OS, and storage, experiencing a 30% faster performance compared to VMware."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

Cons

"Its configuration should be easier."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

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

"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

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

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"The solution is expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."

"It is scalable, but only beyond two nodes. If I go for two nodes it's not scalable. I need to build a complete cluster from the beginning if I'm going for two nodes."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct a three, as there were issues that the Microsoft team could not pinpoint, leading to delays in finding solutions."

"There is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to have more tools to monitor the function and problems."

"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

"It would be beneficial if there were a migration tool for the new way of syncing data for data protection. Currently, we have 30 days' worth of snapshots going back and forth for data protection. A migration tool to transition to better syncing for DR would be valuable, as otherwise, we lose 30 days because of the storage requirement."

"For improvement, the memory or storage should not exceed 90% capacity, as it becomes difficult to manage beyond this threshold."

"We would love to see the analytics and ransomware protection extended beyond just file servers to virtual machines, but they have a different product that covers that."

"Areas for improvement in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) include more redundancy to ensure no data loss, and balancing the workloads is very important to maintain managed workloads throughout the year."

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

"Its features can be further enhanced from the DR and high availability points of view to match other vendors, such as NetApp. It has snapshot, replication, high availability, and other data and storage-level replication, but there are some limitations."

"The solution should keep adding new features to be competitive in the market."

"While they are good and they do work, some of the snapshotting and tiering features are not as simple to set up as they could be."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 price of this solution could be made more affordable."

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

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

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

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

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."

"The solution is expensive."

"Nutanix Unified Storage isn't expensive."

"Licensing-wise, I have no complaints. Their license is pretty simple and easy. It gives us everything we need, so I have no complaints about licensing."

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

"With all of the Nutanix equipment, the licensing is expensive. We operate in the enterprise space, but we're a midsized company. At times, the price tag is a little bit shocking for a company with only 35 employees. We're not a Fortune 500 company, but we deal with Fortune 500 drug and energy companies. We have to play in that enterprise space if we're going to have enterprise customers. I'm very price-conscious, but I understand that if I want the best, I've got to pay the price."

"The pricing is fair."

"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."

"I'm happy with the cost and licensing because I don't have big volumes."

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

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

30%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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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...

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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...

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How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is bes...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Overall, I find the cost of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct to be affordable for the on-prem Windows pure solution, b...

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What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Microsoft should improve the management aspect of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, as we have raised multiple recomme...

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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?

I have no idea about the pricing of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) as I'm not the decision authority for pricing. Gene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

While there are good aspects, I would like to see improvements in networking configuration, particularly regarding ov...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 3% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 59% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 16% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 6% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 13% of the time

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

Compared 13% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 6% of the time

VAST Data vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

August 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

August 2025

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Also Known As

No data available

MS Storage Spaces Direct

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

Storage Spaces Direct uses industry-standard servers with local-attached drives to create highly available, highly scalable software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays. Its converged or hyper-converged architecture radically simplifies procurement and deployment, while features like caching, storage tiers, and erasure coding, together with the latest hardware innovation like RDMA networking and NVMe drives, deliver unrivaled efficiency and performance.

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

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

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

July 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

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