Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage comparison

The compared Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) and Amazon S3 Glacier solutions aren't in the same category. Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is ranked #11 in CS , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 3.1% mindshare in the category. Amazon S3 Glacier is ranked #1 in PCSS , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 10.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Amazon S3 Glacier users who would recommend it.

Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...

Read 18 Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) reviews

4,965 Views
844 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon S3 Glacier

Read 43 Amazon S3 Glacier reviews

3,082 Views
2,866 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Read 67 Microsoft Azure Block Storage reviews

990 Views
644 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...

Amazon S3 Glacier

Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Amazon S3 Glacier, and Microsoft Azure Block Storage based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Dropbox, NetApp and others in Cloud Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Storage Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Storage

February 2026

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Helped 881,757 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

3.7

Amazon EFS offers scalable, cost-effective storage with minimal maintenance, enhancing productivity and benefiting businesses through pay-as-you-go pricing.

Sentiment score

4.0

Organizations benefit from Amazon S3 Glacier with cost savings and high ROI, despite needing better support and cost management.

Sentiment score

2.6

Microsoft Azure Block Storage optimizes expenses with 90% cost reduction, ease of management, and ensures data protection against issues.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) report

If AWS improves support and cost management, there would be fewer reasons for users to consider other cloud platforms.

ArunDhwaj

Technical Owner at Harman International

As it is Amazon S3 Glacier, it is used only for archival purposes, so it is comparatively okay to use it, and we can save money compared to the standard which is high.

Arun-M

Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon S3 Glacier report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Block Storage report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

5.5

Customers find Amazon EFS support reliable, though resolution times may vary based on the complexity and support plan.

Sentiment score

5.4

Amazon S3 Glacier support receives mixed reviews, with some praising assistance and others noting delays and occasional unresponsiveness.

Sentiment score

5.5

Microsoft Azure Block Storage support varies; premium plans offer faster responses, while others face delays and inconsistent service.

While the time to respond was good, the time to resolve was not optimal, as it took more than a week.

Amaratunga Arachchige Vimukthi Amaratunga

Regional Manager at Aspire Lifestyles

Amazon's support model is consistent across services.

Girish Mukim

AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Training and support depend on the plan you have, with centralized support being very helpful in case issues arise.

ChanchalSingh1

Head of Engineering - Data and Machine Learning at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) report

Amazon S3 Glacier is a good solution for us, and I am very happy with it.

Pat Fogarty

Project Engineer at Astellas Pharma US

There is room for improvement in providing more skilled and comprehensive solutions.

ArunDhwaj

Technical Owner at Harman International

They provide documentation and resolve issues.

reviewer1510875

Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon S3 Glacier report

Support quality is good, but the main issue is the delay in handling tickets.

RohitZanwar

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees

I had contacted them before and they replied rapidly.

Kerolos Alfons

System vice president at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees

Ours is a government enterprise organization, so we have a premium support agreement with Microsoft, and they give us the best support.

Ajai Jayakumar

Solution Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Block Storage report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.6

Amazon EFS offers scalable and cost-effective file storage, but users occasionally face challenges with scalability, latency, and connections.

Sentiment score

5.1

Amazon S3 Glacier excels in scalability and integration, handling large data volumes effortlessly with high user ratings and reliability.

Sentiment score

5.8

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is scalable, user-friendly, and suitable for all businesses, though scaling can increase costs.

Its auto-scaling feature is a crucial point, providing high scalability that I would rate at ten out of ten.

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Elastic File Systems allow me to scale up or down easily.

Vijay Gawade

Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies

It is very cost-effective, and there's no need for initial charges.

ChanchalSingh1

Head of Engineering - Data and Machine Learning at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) report

Amazon S3 Glacier auto-scales according to the data.

MoazzamAli

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

Amazon S3 Glacier is infinitely scalable, with no issues on our end.

ArunDhwaj

Technical Owner at Harman International

Glacier has excellent scalability, with elasticity and security that meet industry standards.

reviewer1510875

Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon S3 Glacier report

The ability to scale is well-supported.

reviewer1724676

Sr. Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

It is a significant advantage of the product.

reviewer1724403

Senior Consultant at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees

We are on a premium plan, which should handle scalability automatically.

Felix Lourdes Antony

Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Block Storage report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Amazon EFS is generally stable, with users praising reliability, though some report minor issues mitigated by strong support.

Sentiment score

6.7

Amazon S3 Glacier is highly stable, with minimal outages and enhanced performance from AWS tools, ensuring reliable data access.

Sentiment score

7.6

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly rated for stability, despite occasional regional downtime and minor improvement suggestions.

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

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

While I experienced an EFS mount dropping, it was related to server issues rather than EFS itself.

Girish Mukim

AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) report

It is specifically designed for cold storage.

ArunDhwaj

Technical Owner at Harman International

I do not experience any stability issues.

Arun-M

Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Amazon S3 Glacier is quite stable, nine out of ten.

MoazzamAli

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon S3 Glacier report

It isn't as stable as sound storage systems in a premise environment.

Taiwo Babalola

Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

Overall, the stability is very good.

reviewer1724676

Sr. Cloud Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

None of the other storage vendors have all these features so easily manageable and fast to set up as Block Storage.

MatsHagberg Olsson2

Senior Solutions Architect at EQ2 Technology

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Block Storage report

Room For Improvement

Amazon EFS needs improved connectivity, Windows integration, cost transparency, and one-click setup for enhanced user experience and support.

Amazon S3 Glacier needs improvements in retrieval speed, integration, pricing, support, security, compliance, billing, and storage efficiency.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage users face pricing, interface, and integration challenges, with additional needs for better security and scalability.

Database-type workloads do not run properly on Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) because at the end of the day, it is a network file system and requests must travel from one place to another and then return.

reviewer2784675

Sr. Technical Account Manager at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Enabling AI-driven or automatic features would be beneficial for new or nontechnical users.

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

In my project, there are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption.

Vijay Gawade

Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) report

I would like to see improvements in the transfer rate as it takes quite a long time to retrieve data from Glacier compared to standard S3 storage.

MoazzamAli

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

Support could be more robust, with a focus on providing comprehensive solutions even for novel issues.

ArunDhwaj

Technical Owner at Harman International

Another improvement is making Glacier available in all regions.

reviewer1510875

Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon S3 Glacier report

Its compatibility with various platforms could be enhanced to allow for a seamless operation across different cloud environments.

Taiwo Babalola

Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

Some alternatives are cheaper and available for long trial periods before the payment.

Mohamed Sadek

Lead DevOps and Release Engineer-L2 at ITWORX

Enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure doesn’t support it.

Felix Lourdes Antony

Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Block Storage report

Setup Cost

Amazon EFS charges based on usage with higher costs compared to S3, making it less budget-friendly.

Amazon S3 Glacier's pricing is affordable but confusing, with no licensing fees and potential long-term costs for large data volumes.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage pricing is generally higher than competitors, but offers discounted rates through enterprise agreements.

EFS could cost around $30 to $50 per month for similar usage.

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

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

Girish Mukim

AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Elastic File Systems can be expensive due to the nature of data transfer costs.

Vijay Gawade

Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) report

Compared to competitors like GCP, AWS can work on reducing hidden costs and overall pricing to retain startups and medium-sized businesses.

ArunDhwaj

Technical Owner at Harman International

The storage cost is minimal, which is beneficial for archival purposes.

reviewer1510875

Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Amazon S3 Glacier is beneficial due to its lower cost.

StevenLai

Sr. Data Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon S3 Glacier report

For medium-sized companies, especially when discussing cost and scalability, it can be quite expensive.

Taiwo Babalola

Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

The cost for Azure Data Factory, utilized for intensive data migration, was high but expected, as it's a one-time activity.

Felix Lourdes Antony

Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

It is reasonable, however, it can be cheaper.

reviewer1724403

Senior Consultant at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Block Storage report

Valuable Features

Amazon EFS provides scalable, secure, and flexible storage with fast data access, auto-scaling, and seamless AWS integration for dynamic workloads.

Amazon S3 Glacier provides affordable, secure archiving with easy integration, strong encryption, user-friendly features, and reliable data management.

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is reliable, scalable, secure, and affordable, with excellent data management and integration features.

Its ease of integration with other AWS services enhances our infrastructure, while the shared storage access improves reliability and processing continuity for our applications.

Girish Mukim

AWS Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

They help me process data while maintaining low latency, which is crucial for efficient data processing.

Vijay Gawade

Data Engineer at Softtech Cloud Technologies

The most valuable feature of Amazon EFS is its auto-scaling capability.

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) report

Glacier greatly helps in managing storage costs by moving historical data to a lower-cost storage option.

reviewer1510875

Sr Data Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

The security features include object lock encryption and immutability options, so we can use this for backups.

Arun-M

Server Administrator at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

The most valuable features of Amazon S3 Glacier are its cost-effectiveness for data archiving and its durability.

MoazzamAli

Sr DevOps Engineer at HTC Global

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon S3 Glacier report

The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease.

MatsHagberg Olsson2

Senior Solutions Architect at EQ2 Technology

The world is now directed toward a centralized data platform or Fabric to build a data lake house for data engineering, which keeps all data in a centralized place that's beneficial for the governance layer and unified governance.

Kerolos Alfons

System vice president at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees

The ability to increase and scale out is really easy, allowing us to manage a large amount of data with reduced dependency on scalability issues.

Taiwo Babalola

Information Technology Business Partner and Enterprise Architecture Lead at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Microsoft Azure Block Storage report

Mindshare comparison

Cloud Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)	3.1%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise	7.3%
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP	6.4%
Other	83.2%

Cloud Storage

Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon S3 Glacier	10.9%
Amazon S3	13.4%
Microsoft Azure File Storage	8.2%
Other	67.5%

Public Cloud Storage Services

Public Cloud Storage Services Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Azure Block Storage	2.2%
Amazon S3	13.4%
Amazon S3 Glacier	10.9%
Other	73.5%

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

Amaratunga Arachchige Vimukthi Amaratunga

Regional Manager at Aspire Lifestyles

Security features impress while response times need improvement

We use cloud storage security, which is a virus scanner for their infrastructure, as a new addition. Other than that, it focuses on serverless features, such as Lambda and Aurora SQL server databases. CSS cloud storage security, which is offered by AWS, is integrated into our system. It functions as a virus scanner that monitors whenever any incoming file arrives. The AWS service is excellent security-wise, and I have seen some other features besides security, such as automatic scaling that helped us significantly. Regarding integration, it provides us with the benefit that our data is kept within our account only.

Read full review

Pat Fogarty

Project Engineer at Astellas Pharma US

Archiving data has reduced storage costs and provides reliable long‑term retention

We have not really come across any downsides for us. It is possible that the retrieval of data may be expensive, which could be an issue, but we have not experienced that in fairness. Integration with our policies would be beneficial. We have policies for our systems where we delete data after a certain number of years, and having integration with Amazon S3 Glacier would be good. Having a guarantee that Amazon S3 Glacier would persist for the amount of time that we require in our archives would be valuable. In other words, Amazon would need to commit to support for the period we need. We could be talking about 20 years or longer. We cannot always move to the next version because we need to maintain old systems and legacy systems in order to maintain archives. A guarantee around support would be a good thing to have.

Read full review

Ajai Jayakumar

Solution Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees

Has supported secure file sharing and data automation with minimal setup effort

The encryption feature in Microsoft Azure Block Storage is very good, and the security is excellent. It is easy to map the storage to the virtual servers and user desktops, which is also very beneficial. I can perform automations on the data, such as moving hot data and cold data, and I can select storage based on performance. The security provided by Microsoft around Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a very good function. The replication feature in Microsoft Azure Block Storage is a very good function. The analytic capabilities of Microsoft Azure Block Storage can help optimize resources. I usually work with a third-party tool; our data analytics team uses some custom-made tools for analytics data and dashboards, so we do not use the Microsoft dashboard; we are using a third-party dashboard. It is very easy to manage Microsoft Azure Block Storage. If you have good knowledge of it, it is very easy to manage. Microsoft Azure Block Storage service is a very good, 100% reliable service. It is highly scalable, and performance-wise and reliability-wise, it does not go down. It provides 99.9% uptime without downtime, so it is a very good feature. The backup and restoration efficiency of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is good.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Financial Services Firm

University

Marketing Services Firm

18%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Performing Arts

Non Tech Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	24

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 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)?

We don't need to purchase it; we are just using it and paying Amazon as per the utilization. We make direct payments ...

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Which is better - Amazon's S3 Glacier or EBS (Elastic Block Store)?

Our organization ran comparison tests to determine whether Amazon's S3 Glacier or Elastic Block Store data storage so...

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What do you like most about Amazon S3 Glacier?

I like creating buckets where data can be segregated at a high level and then routing the appropriate data to each de...

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What needs improvement with Amazon S3 Glacier?

The support could be improved by having specialized support staff. When we submit a question, it gets passed between ...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Block Storage?

We use the solution to develop SaaS platforms on Azure. We utilize various Microsoft components like block storage an...

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

Our experience with pricing has been positive. The budget for Microsoft Azure services has been within expectations f...

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What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Block Storage?

For improvement in Microsoft Azure Block Storage, they can provide tiered level storages, maybe low-cost storages for...

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Comparisons

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

Compared 84% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 2% of the time

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

Compared 2% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 2% of the time

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 1% of the time

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) Competitors

Google Cloud Storage Nearline vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 40% of the time

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 10% of the time

Wasabi vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 10% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 8% of the time

IBM SoftLayer vs Amazon S3 Glacier

Compared 2% of the time

More Amazon S3 Glacier Competitors

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Compared 19% of the time

Rackspace Cloud Block Storage vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Compared 15% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Compared 10% of the time

Zadara vs Microsoft Azure Block Storage

Compared 9% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Block Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

February 2026

Download Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon S3 Glacier

February 2026

Download Amazon S3 Glacier product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure Block Storage

January 2026

Download Microsoft Azure Block Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

Amazon Glacier

MS Azure Block Storage

Overview

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 Glacier is a secure, durable, and extremely low-cost cloud storage service for data archiving and long-term backup. Customers can reliably store large or small amounts of data for as little as $0.007 per gigabyte per month, a significant savings compared to on-premises solutions. To keep costs low, Amazon Glacier is optimized for infrequently accessed data where a retrieval time of several hours is suitable.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Massively scalable cloud storage for your applications

Store and help protect your data. Get durable, highly available data storage across the globe and pay only for what you use.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend

King Cpunty, Illumina, Backupify, Nearmap.com, Scribd, Baylor College of Medicine, SoundCloud

Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive

Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Dropbox, NetApp and others in Cloud Storage. Updated: February 2026.

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