The primary use case is to offer a highly available Linux-based file server to eliminate the security vulnerabilities of a Windows-based file server and the pain point of having a single file server, which means you can reboot it during production hours. Besides the general performance and security improvements, it also adds analytics audit trails and, most importantly, ransomware protection. For example, it’s not uncommon for a client to migrate their Windows file shares to Nutanix Files and then File Analytics detects and blocks dormant ransomware files.
Chief Technology Officer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
A stable and scalable ransomware protection solution with a good customer support team
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
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 needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for a few years.
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
As the solution is highly available, it's infinitely more stable than a single file
server.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a super scalable solution.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service team is most excellent, and a primary factor when choosing Nutanix.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
It requires a bit of understanding of how Nutanix works. If you're familiar with Nutanix or a Nutanix partner, integrating is fairly straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
For clients running Nutanix, the licensing cost for Files is a small add-on cost.
What other advice do I have?
It does not require extra maintenance than any other software product. One needs to patch it periodically. Every client we've migrated from Windows file server to Nutanix file servers has said, I wish I'd done this sooner. I recommend exploring this as soon as you read about it. It solves issues left out in the wild by Windows file servers that no one is addressing and does so in a super powerful way.
I rate it ten out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Owner at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Stable and good tool
Pros and Cons
- "My opinion is that this solution has very good stability."
- "Customer service is more difficult to call and they do not responding as much as, for example, DataCore. It's not the same level of satisfaction compared to DataCore. Responses could be faster."
What is our primary use case?
My use case is quite complicated because in our society we need to know how to integrate Nutanix products and we need to understand how to integrate technical products. Nutanix is a bit more challenging to use, start, administrate, and deploy, but overall a very stable solution and quite a good tool.
All of my clients are secret clients for military use or industrial use and, in all cases, we are on-premises.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in the solution's customer service.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
My opinion is that this solution has very good stability. Maybe it's better than, for example, DataCore, because there are more servers. So you can move your data easily to a different server. When it comes to moving data, it's better than DataCore.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When it comes to scalability, it's not as easy as, for example, DataCore, but it's scalable. When you have a lot of storage to add, it's pretty good. When you have small storage to add, it's more complicated than DataCore.
How are customer service and support?
Customer service is more difficult to call and they do not responding as much as, for example, DataCore. It's not the same level of satisfaction compared to DataCore. Responses could be faster.
I would rate their customer service a seven, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The license is paid on a yearly basis and they're quite expensive.
I would rate their pricing plan an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Nutanix for people that can manage their computing infrastructure. Because when you have Nutanix, you need some expertise in computing science, because it's not very easy to use and administrate.
We only have about three clients on Nutanix.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Integrator
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Head of Infrastructure at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Offers excellent scalability, live migration, and built-in threat detection
What is our primary use case?
I work with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for many cases. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) can meet any storage need that a company has, such as traditional block storage for NFS or virtualization. It can deliver a file solution for different kinds of needs of a company, and even objects for backup, for logs, for data lakes, for image repositories. It's a very popular solution in Brazil for medical companies that need to store diagnostic images for a very long time. It can handle any kind of data usage, even for containers and Kubernetes. It's a very flexible and scalable solution.
What is most valuable?
The performance of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for high throughput and low latency requirements is the main point. When we work with centralized storage, traditional storage, we have a limit to the throughput that we can achieve with the size of the controllers. With Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), we can scale this out and have as many controllers as we need and scale this live on production with no need to stop, no need for data migration. With large amounts of files, this is game-changing.
The main feature of the solution is the live migration that we have and the scalability from both a virtual perspective and the hardware perspective. Since last year, we have had a migration tool for migrating files from a traditional file system or an NAS solution. We migrate the file system with all the permissions and the SMB profiles. We migrate the file system as a copy and paste from a Windows or a NAS solution to Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS).
My impression of the cybersecurity features of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for dealing with unstructured data and ransomware threats is that it operates with the same approach as its main storage solution. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is security-first. It's already built into the system, and new features are developed every month. We can have a solution for micro-segmentation in this solution. We can include our unified storage in a VPC and have isolation or micro-segmentation from those who can access the solution and deliver even more security features to avoid data extrapolation and unauthorized data copying. We have the Data Lens solution, which helps us identify threats such as ransomware and rogue behaviors that users might have. It's a very complete solution.
What needs improvement?
To improve Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), cost is always an issue for every company, especially when we talk about large amounts of data. This is more a cultural market issue than the price of the solution. The value that the solution delivers is very high. For companies that use data as an asset, for a data lake, for analytics, the return on the investment is almost instant. This is a mentality question that the market has to learn to use. Data Lens is not for a backup repository. It's for a data lake and production data that will be used as an asset.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have extensive experience with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) since its launch. Before, the product had other names. The solution for files was called Nutanix Files, then Nutanix Objects. About three years ago, the product was changed to Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS).
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the support for Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) as very good. I needed it just one time, and the support worked wonders with the case that we had.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is very straightforward. It's the delivery of a virtual appliance just as with the Prism Central and anything within the Nutanix portfolio. The setup is very simple.
What other advice do I have?
I am familiar with the Data Lens: High Cost feature of Nutanix Unified Storage. It has a price barrier. It's not for everyone. It's costly, but it's very powerful. This is a step further than the traditional data analytics that is built-in with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS). Data Lens takes it to the next level. We have deeper insights and deeper management of the profiles of data use. For companies where data is a resource and asset, Data Lens is a must-have product.
I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Last updated: Sep 26, 2025
Flag as inappropriateSenior Citrix Architect and EUC Expert at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Good security and performance with responsive technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The performance has been very good."
- "I haven't had any issues with the solution so far."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for storage. We've migrated all over all file servers and systems over to Nutanix Unified Storage.
How has it helped my organization?
We had 10 VMs with older technologies. I'm happy to use this as it is really simple and complete.
The high availability of the storage is important. We have some customer data and it's crucial for us to be able to maintain and secure the data.
What is most valuable?
It's a complete product. It works well.
The security is very good.
We use clusters, and these are not only dedicated to storage. We have VMs, containers, and other types of storage.
The performance has been very good.
We were able to save 20% of our time by using this solution.
What needs improvement?
I haven't had any issues with the solution so far.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is really stable. I'm really impressed by the product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've started with three VMs. We now have five VMs in our operations. We have no issues when we try to scale.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is good. We've opened cases with them, and my experience has been really good. They are very fast, and they have very good technical knowledge. They come to the calls prepared.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not previously use a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is very easy. It's no problem to implement it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I do not have visibility of the pricing and licensing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did look at other solutions. We were able to validate Nutanix against other solutions. It has a complete ecosystem, which is important for us. We wanted more options to extend our environment if we needed to.
What other advice do I have?
We do not use the solution for AI and data analytics or for preventing and blocking ransomware.
We have not tried to integrate it with other products. However, I have tried to integrate it with a backup solution, and I didn't have any issues.
I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Owner, Chief Operating Officer at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Best customer service and the ability to do everything from one point
Pros and Cons
- "It is unified. This is the best thing that Nutanix gave to the world. You can do everything from one point."
- "I would like Nutanix to provide a solution for virtual disks. This is the main problem for which we want a solution."
What is our primary use case?
I do not use it myself. My technicians use it for their work. They look at the portal every day. It is open on their desktops all day.
How has it helped my organization?
We have time savings and scalability.
What is most valuable?
It is unified. This is the best thing that Nutanix gave to the world. You can do everything from one point.
It is very easy to use, and we also get the best customer service from Nutanix.
What needs improvement?
It is a good solution, but every solution can be better. I would like Nutanix to provide a solution for virtual disks. This is the main problem for which we want a solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Nutanix for six or seven years.
How are customer service and support?
Their customer support is great. They provide the best support and service. Nutanix is the best in this aspect.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I hope that it will stay the way it is. We have seen the changes in VMware and what happened to them. I have heard that Nutanix will raise the prices, but I hope that they will not do that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
When we did the PoC about seven years ago, we found Nutanix infrastructure better for us. It helps us with Kubernetes.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Nutanix Unified Storage a ten out of ten. We are very satisfied with all the solutions that Nutanix provides us.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Infrastructure Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
User-friendly, easy to upgrade, and provides high availability
Pros and Cons
- "The product is good, easy to upgrade, easy to use, and user-friendly."
- "The solution's monitoring and security features could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We have two major use cases for Nutanix Unified Storage. For the first use case, we use the solution to provision volume for our Kubernetes cluster, which is used for telecommunication. If you buy an iPhone 15, the eSIM is downloaded from a Nutanix Karbon AHV, and the volume is provisioned by Nutanix Unified Storage. The second use case I have is with volume, which is also part of the NUS. In some cases, we use Nutanix Volumes for a third volume.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has helped our organization the most at an operational level. Before using Nutanix Unified Storage, we were manually provisioning volume for Kubernetes using heavy technology. We had to do a lot of tasks to provision one basic volume. Now, we are giving big volumes. The solution provides good stability and high availability, which is not the case in the previous version of my volume.
What is most valuable?
The console and volume management for Kubernetes are very nice and easy to use. The product is good, easy to upgrade, easy to use, and user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
The solution's monitoring and security features could be improved. Nutanix Unified Storage is not easily managed by the command line.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution since the beginning of Nutanix. We installed the first clusters in 2016 and have been using Nutanix Unified Storage since 2017.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Nutanix Unified Storage is a very stable solution. I have been using it for seven years and have never had a problem with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Nutanix Unified Storage is very easy to scale. You just need to go into the tool's console, click on update, add some memory or CPU, and update. You can also use the solution's console to monitor your performance live.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's customer support is very, very good. I am very satisfied with the support. Nutanix Unified Storage has very good customer support compared to the other tools I use.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Nutanix Unified Storage, we used different solutions. We used VMware volume for the Kubernetes clusters. We also used basic NFS on Linux machines, which did not provide resilience and high availability. That's why I was very happy to have Nutanix Unified Storage. It provided high availability, resilience, and performance, which was very good for me.
How was the initial setup?
The solution's initial setup is very easy. First, you have to install Prism Central. Then, you get your file console with one click, deploy the volume, give a name, and give an endpoint.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment has been the operational time for my team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm very happy with the solution's pricing. I'm using iOS Pro licensing. I'm really happy because I have the benefit of getting one terabyte for free, which is sufficient for my use cases. I'm happy with the cost and licensing because I don't have big volumes. I have a little bit of volume to consume without added cost. So, it's perfect for me.
What other advice do I have?
The throughput or latency of Nutanix Unified Storage for data-intensive workloads works well because we have good infrastructure and networking. Since the networking is recent, we have good bandwidth. We're using little volume, but we don't have a lot of traffic. I have never had issues or struggles.
I have 15 clusters, and I'm using only one terabyte free. I can't see the efficiency of data reduction because I don't have big volumes. Since I don't have a great volume, I can't say that I have ten terabytes, and deduplication has helped me to reduce one node.
I'm the infrastructure manager of our data center. We propose Nutanix Unified Storage. We deliver our volumes, and then the integration team consumes them. I don't know which kind of data is structured or unstructured. We use Cassandra databases for some purposes and Oracle for other use cases.
Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Business Unit Head at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Has perfect throughput and latency for data-intensive workloads, such as AI and data analytics
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's most valuable features are its support and speed."
- "The product needs to work a bit more on its ransomware detection capabilities."
What is our primary use case?
My company uses the solution for the filing system purpose. My organization also uses the tool for the application and the APIs installed in Kubernetes to synchronize with the workload services.
How has it helped my organization?
The product was useful for my business since it allowed for syncing between the on-premise and the cloud applications, which helped us in a very good way. With the tool, my company was able to have applications that were highly available.
My company has the product installed in a hybrid environment.
Nutanix Unified Storage's throughput or latency for data-intensive workloads, such as AI or data analytics, is good and perfect. The capacities or abilities of the product are based on the configuration and use cases that my company deals with, and I see how the product already works well for us.
Nutanix Unified Storage detects and blocks ransomware threats very well. I rate the tool's ability to detect and block ransomware threats an eight out of ten. The product needs to work a bit more on its ransomware detection capabilities.
In terms of false positives, I would say that I think it is a stable tool that is growing in the right direction. I think that within one or two years, it will be a fully flexible tool.
Implementing Nutanix Unified Storage has resulted in a reduction in the number of storage nodes used in our company, and I think it is possible due to an increased storage capacity per node. With less capacity, the tool can support more applications. In my company, we have been able to save around ten nodes using Nutanix Unified Storage, and such a reduction has been helpful in terms of cost savings.
What is most valuable?
The solution's most valuable features are its support and speed. In case of any support cases, the tool's technical team provides help seamlessly. The product is very light, so adopting the technology is very easy.
What needs improvement?
I don't know how the product can be made perfect. Till date, my company has not faced any significant issues with the tool. Considering that my company is already an existing partner of Nutanix, if we plan to scale up, then some improvements are required on the pricing front and the scalability feature offered by the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Nutanix Unified Storage for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, the solution is very nice. The scalability feature of the product is actually available as an add-on which allows users to scale the existing environment by allowing one to put more nodes, more applications, while being able to move it between cloud and on-premises, which is something very great.
How are customer service and support?
In a short period of time, the support team provides a proper solution. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
My company used VMware in the past. We switched from VMware to Nutanix Unified Storage because of the seamless stability offered by Nutanix. Nutanix products are scalable in a nice way, and we can move the tool from the cloud to an on-premises version and vice versa.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial deployment phase was neither hard nor easy, making it a neutral process for me.
In case, anything happens during the tool's implementation phase, you can open a case with the support team and they can provide a fair resolution.
The solution can be deployed in a span of forty days.
What was our ROI?
Using the tool, my company has saved around 30,000 USD.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
My company did not evaluate any other options against Nutanix Unified Storage.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
Technical Director at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
The product is easy to manage and provides good support, but it is very expensive
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very easy to manage."
- "The solution is very expensive."
What is our primary use case?
Our clients usually use the product in the financial industry for application servers.
What is most valuable?
The solution is very easy to manage. The replication almost always works without fail.
What needs improvement?
The solution is very expensive. It is very network intensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product is scalable. I rate the scalability a seven out of ten. The scalability could be better for a very large deployment. Our clients are mostly medium-sized, but there are a couple of enterprise clients.
How was the initial setup?
The installation is very user-friendly.
What about the implementation team?
The deployment takes days, and the number of staff depends on the number of servers we install. Four engineers can do a medium size installation of 20 servers in about five days.
When we have a problem with the solution, it may require maintenance, but Nutanix actively supports its systems. Since support is very good, maintenance is minimal. We need two people to maintain and monitor 20 servers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate the pricing of the product an eight out of ten. The product has an annual licensing fee. There are no additional costs associated with the product.
What other advice do I have?
I am using the version that was released before the latest version. People planning to buy the solution must make sure that whatever software they put on it is licensed in a way that is friendly for moving block storage in Nutanix. Some products like Oracle Database are not licensed in a way that is friendly for Nutanix products. It is very expensive to license these products.
Technically, it is a very good product with good support, but it is very expensive. Other alternatives might require a little bit more technical support, but their prices are very friendly. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
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Updated: January 2026
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