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Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Azure Files comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
211
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (4th)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (10th), File and Object Storage (10th)
Azure Files
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (20th), File and Object Storage (19th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
VA
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.
Sameer_Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Solution Specialist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Migration has become seamless and cost tracking is simplified for hybrid file workloads
I think if Azure Files could integrate migration using Storage Mover, that would be an improvement. I don't think they have an option currently. Storage Mover only has an option to migrate blob storage or cold storage from one subscription to another subscription or from one tenant to another tenant. You only have options to migrate blob storage. For Azure Files, that is an SMB transfer, so you need to use AZCopy for that. If there is a migration where you want to migrate your blob storage from one subscription to another or from one tenant to another, you have the Storage Mover option where you can easily migrate blob storage. However, Storage Mover does not support Azure Files.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The back-end data reporting for Pure Storage is phenomenal. The data that you can see on the performance of your customers' array, so you can be proactive about upgrades or enhancements, and is a phenomenal tool to have access to as a partner. I haven't seen this type of stuff out of anything of the other storage systems."
"This solution has improved our organization. In the past, we had reports that were taking up to two hours and after switching to SSD storage the overall processing power dropped to half an hour. The end users saw an immediate performance gain."
"The most important feature of any storage array is its reliability, measured by its uptime."
"The connections are a lot faster than what we had in the past. One InfiniBand does what we did on all of our Fibre Channels."
"Before we used Pure Storage it took 93 days of employees who run the database to back up and restore databases, and the scale of deployment basically went from several days to a few minutes."
"As soon as we introduced our first Pure Storage FlashArray, the first benefit we saw, from our very first benchmarks, was that our production databases simply ran twice as fast with no other changes."
"I would highly recommend this solution; it has all the features we need and tests all the software solutions that are currently available and that will be available in the future."
"One feature that's particularly valuable for our finance customers is Pure Storage's safe mode. It protects against ransomware attacks by taking snapshots. Our customers were very impressed with this capability. The data reduction is also impressive compared to other providers."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is an excellent service that provides a serverless solution with unlimited storage and easy configuration."
"Amazon EFS offers the flexibility of scaling as needed without requiring pre-provisioned storage."
"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."
"The productivity of the customer has improved by around 30% by using Amazon EFS instead of a unique EC2 NFS instance."
"The solution is quite stable."
"We can run code and deploy it whenever we want."
"The most beneficial feature of the product for data storage stems from the fact that it serves as a shared file storage."
"We haven't seen any downtime or challenges when using the services."
"If we need to migrate data, Azure Files allows a seamless data migration."
 

Cons

"As partners, we should have the option to download the software, rather than have to go back through Pure to obtain it."
"It is a bit expensive."
"I would like to get a weekly report of how our storage has been used, and if there is any storage sitting there not being used."
"The only time that we had problems with it was that there was a bug in the VVol implementation but, outside of that, it has been flawless."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"Had some issues with Purity not being entirely compatible with VMware ESXi."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is."
"The data reduction that we had initially anticipated when we bought Pure and we moved over is way lower than the expected reduction."
"The main challenge with EFS is its cost, which is slightly higher compared to EBS or S3."
"There are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption."
"The platform's connectivity could be improved to be more comparable to S3 buckets, which offer better API availability."
"When we faced some issues, the support team took a lot of time to resolve them."
"Its deployment process could be faster while installing the Python package directly into the environment."
"It could be better in connecting with Windows Server instances."
"I don't have notes on improvements."
"The initial setup requires prior experience and technical skills."
"I think if Azure Files could integrate migration using Storage Mover, that would be an improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"There is always room for negotiation."
"Its price is almost double than any other flash storage solution."
"There should be quite a bit of reduction of TCO with just licensing (and stuff) because we run the VM environment off it."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"Pure Storage FlashArray's pricing is very competitive."
"We have an Evergreen Storage subscription, which I think is a great feature."
"The solution's price is mid-ranged."
"I would rate the pricing 7 out of 10."
"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."
"It has flexible pricing. You are charged based on your storage."
"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."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a pay-as-you-go model, so whenever you use its services, you need to pay."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise143
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I don't really know much about the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray in terms of the absolute cost. Regarding Everg...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
Despite liking Pure Storage FlashArray, there is room for improvement in automation. Pure Storage FlashArray needs to...
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...
What do you like most about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
The product's initial setup phase is easy, as per the configurations.
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 ...
What needs improvement with Azure Files?
I think if Azure Files could integrate migration using Storage Mover, that would be an improvement. I don't think the...
What is your primary use case for Azure Files?
We are moving on-premise project data migrated to Azure file shares. We currently have all offices, and we have just ...
What advice do you have for others considering Azure Files?
We have Azure Files and Azure ML as well. I work on the infrastructure part of Azure like Azure Files. Integration is...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
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