Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon FSx comparison

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) and Amazon FSx are both solutions in the Cloud Storage category. Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Amazon FSx is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.3. Additionally, 100% of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Amazon FSx users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Amazon EFS and Amazon FSx are cloud storage solutions competing in the AWS ecosystem. FSx seems to have the upper hand due to its flexibility and support for specialized file systems.

Features: Amazon EFS offers a fully managed NFS file system with easy scalability and minimal management. FSx supports Windows File Server, integrates seamlessly with Windows-based environments, and is optimized for high-performance computing tasks with FSx for Lustre. FSx offers tailored functionalities for specific workloads.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Amazon EFS provides straightforward deployment with reliable customer support, emphasizing ease of use. FSx deployment varies by file system, including detailed configuration options that may require more setup. FSx's customer service is recognized for specialized support in complex integrations.

Pricing and ROI: EFS has a pay-as-you-go pricing model with automatic scaling to balance costs and resource consumption. It is favored for low upfront costs and predictable expenses. FSx pricing depends on the selected file system and may be higher due to its specialized nature but offers robust performance for demanding applications.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Amazon FSx Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Amazon FSx

April 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

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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MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Auto-scaling capabilities enhance file management while reducing downtime

The most valuable feature of Amazon EFS is its auto-scaling capability. It's really easy to configure EFS by just creating it and running a command to directly configure it with my servers. It supports unlimited use, and charges are applied based on the file usage at the end of the month. The solution offers reduced downtime and increased durability through its auto-scaling features.

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MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Shared storage capabilities provide enterprise value with good reliability

Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS. The auto-scaling feature should be improved, as it currently includes downtime. I need to manually increase the storage, which is not ideal. Integrating FSx with Windows Server is challenging; it's a long process involving Active Directory (AD) setup and synchronization.

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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

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The solution provides many controllers."

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

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

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

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Elastic File Systems allow me to share data, provision, and manage capacity and performance in AWS."

"Its elasticity and flexible pricing are the most valuable. For Amazon EFS, you are charged based on the storage. It is also very fast and stable with a very simple and intuitive interface."

"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is secure as it is used under VPC."

"The platform is highly scalable."

"Amazon EFS is extremely stable, as it is managed by AWS."

"The first valuable thing is it is scalable."

"Amazon EFS is extremely stable, as it is managed by AWS."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) pros

"FSx operates as an independent service, not tied to any server, which eliminates dependencies between applications for storage."

"I rate the stability of Amazon FSx ten out of ten."

"The shared storage capability is highly valuable."

"We used it for disaster recovery perspective behind a number of resources, like batch services and RDS."

Cons

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

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

"The speed could be improved."

"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."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"I would like to see better integration."

"Its configuration should be easier."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The initial setup requires prior experience and technical skills."

"Around 80 percent of the features of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) are available on Linux and not in Windows, making it a major drawback of the product."

"The main challenge with EFS is its cost, which is slightly higher compared to EBS or S3."

"When we faced some issues, the support team took a lot of time to resolve them."

"The platform's connectivity could be improved to be more comparable to S3 buckets, which offer better API availability."

"The user activity needs to be more connected."

"The deployment is definitely not an easy process."

"The product's stability has some shortcomings where improvements are required."

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) cons

"I've been facing a challenge when doing a failover from FSx side. AWS console does not refresh within a half hour."

"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."

"A direct FTP feature would be beneficial instead of relying on transmission services."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

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

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

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The product charges are based on the amount of data stored."

"The product's price depends on the services and the size and capacity at which it is used in a business environment."

"It has flexible pricing. You are charged based on your storage."

"I would rate the pricing 7 out of 10."

"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a pay-as-you-go model, so whenever you use its services, you need to pay."

"The solution's price is mid-ranged."

"The main challenge with EFS is its cost, which is slightly higher compared to EBS or S3. For one GB or ten GB of data, S3 is much cheaper. EFS could cost around $30 to $50 per month for similar usage."

"The lowest price I have paid is $370 or $380 per month, while the highest can exceed $3,000 per month."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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 for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

See all answers

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 pe...

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What do you like most about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?

The product's initial setup phase is easy, as per the configurations.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?

Amazon EFS is more costly compared to other storage options available from AWS.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon FSx?

Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS. The auto-scaling feature should be imp...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon FSx?

I use Amazon FSx as a shared storage service for Windows, particularly when there are multiple Windows servers and a ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Amazon FSx?

I must be aware of my specific use case and choose the solution accordingly. I use FSx when shared storage is require...

See all answers

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

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Amazon S3 Glacier vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Amazon FSx

Compared 21% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Amazon FSx

Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Nasuni vs Amazon FSx

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

April 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

April 2025

Download Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Storage

March 2025

Download Amazon FSx product report

Also Known As

No data available

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre

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

Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) provides simple, scalable file storage for use with Amazon EC2 instances in the AWS Cloud. Amazon EFS is easy to use and offers a simple interface that allows you to create and configure file systems quickly and easily. With Amazon EFS, storage capacity is elastic, growing and shrinking automatically as you add and remove files, so your applications have the storage they need, when they need it.

When mounted to Amazon EC2 instances, an Amazon EFS file system provides a standard file system interface and file system access semantics, allowing you to seamlessly integrate Amazon EFS with your existing applications and tools. Multiple Amazon EC2 instances can access an Amazon EFS file system at the same time, allowing Amazon EFS to provide a common data source for workloads and applications running on more than one Amazon EC2 instance.

It’s designed for high availability and durability, and provides performance for a broad spectrum of workloads and applications, including Big Data and analytics, media processing workflows, content management, web serving, and home directories.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon FSx makes it easy and cost effective to launch and run popular file systems. With Amazon FSx, you can leverage the rich feature sets and fast performance of widely-used open source and commercially-licensed file systems, while avoiding time-consuming administrative tasks like hardware provisioning, software configuration, patching, and backups. It provides cost-efficient capacity and high levels of reliability, and it integrates with other AWS services so that you can manage and use the file systems in cloud-native ways.

Amazon FSx provides you with two file systems to choose from: Amazon FSx for Windows File Server for enterprise workloads and Amazon FSx for Lustre for high-performance workloads.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

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

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend

Neiman Marcus, T Mobile, Docxellent, Matrix, Lyell

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Amazon FSx

April 2025

Free Report: Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Amazon FSx

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Amazon FSx and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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