Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs DataCore Swarm comparison

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. DataCore Swarm

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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 July 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DataCore Swarm is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

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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Julien GUILLAUMOU

Chief Technical Officer at Integra Systems

Enhancing backup speed and efficiency with high availability

We use DataCore Swarm essentially for backups, utilizing immutable backups and dynamic archiving from the file server. We also have a project called the Fiservo, which allows us to move the archive and all files from Fiservo It is more rapid than using tape for backups, which was quite slow for…

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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

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

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

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

"The solution provides many controllers."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"We haven't seen any downtime or challenges when using the services."

"I appreciate Amazon's extensive range of services, which makes it a favorable choice."

"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."

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

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

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

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

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) pros

"The ability for the solution to use any new hardware quickly and without administration is a great thing in the context of hosting."

"I find its flexibility valuable."

"With DataCore Swarm, we have transitioned from tape-based backups, which were long, to Swarm, making the process more rapid and efficient."

"DataCore Swarm is highly available."

"The first feature is compatibility with the S3 protocol. DataCore SWARM allows you to quickly have an on-premise, robust and scalable environment that is natively compatible with the S3 protocol. The functionalities used are therefore derived from the S3 protocol, notably versioning and therefore the possibility of configuring immutability in governance or compliance mode. The object metada can be enriched with the addition of tags to subsequently enable filtering and searching. Configuring and using DataCore SWARM is simple and flexible. It is very easy to create domains, tenants and buckets for different use cases with various authentications. The cluster architecture also allows replication between different clusters at different configured levels (Cluster / Domains / ...) A web interface for browsing the content of existing buckets allows simple and rapid manipulation of certain objects such as sharing via a link or cropping a video. Finally, the physical architecture of the solution is based on an x86 server and its scale-up or scale-out evolution is very simple by adding disks or servers."

Cons

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"I would like to see better integration."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"I don't have notes on improvements."

"Specifically, when it comes to the file system for the learning system, we encountered performance issues with both Azure and AWS."

"There are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption."

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

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

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

"EFS could be improved by including a one-click setup."

"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."

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) cons

"The main issue currently is the hard installation process."

"The solution needs simpler architecture."

"The pricing can definitely be better."

"The main issue currently is the hard installation process."

"The product currently requires a significant number of servers to start. There are also network prerequisites to be met in order to guarantee good security of the architecture, which means that the product is only available to large customers. Besides, the license starts at 100TB. An Appliance version is being developed with an architecture based on containers which will make it possible to offer DataCore SWARM to everyone. The product has been evolving since the acquisition by DataCore, but maintaining and updating the product is not always easy and needs to be improved. For now, we only use DataCore SWARM for a few use cases and therefore a small part of the existing functionalities. With use we will perhaps have more criticism of the product but not for the moment!"

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The product is very expensive."

"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."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

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

"The price could be cheaper."

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

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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 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 first installation brick is expensive but the upgrades are extremely simple and granular by adding disks or nodes."

"You pay for what you use. For example, if you use one terabyte, you just pay for that one terabyte. But the pricing could always be better"

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

24%

Comms Service Provider

17%

Financial Services Firm

Legal Firm

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...

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...

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...

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)?

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

What do you like most about DataCore Swarm?

The first feature is compatibility with the S3 protocol. DataCore SWARM allows you to quickly have an on-premise, rob...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore Swarm?

DataCore Swarm's pricing is reasonable. While the initial step is expensive, ramping up capacity is relatively afford...

What needs improvement with DataCore Swarm?

The main issue currently is the hard installation process. Upgrading from CentOS to Rocky is not straightforward eith...

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparisons

Compared 20% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

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

Compared 56% of the time

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

Compared 9% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon S3 Glacier vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 6% of the time

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

Compared 6% of the time

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 40% of the time

MinIO vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 28% of the time

Dell ECS vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 13% of the time

Scality RING vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs DataCore Swarm

Compared 9% of the time

More DataCore Swarm Competitors

Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

July 2025

Download Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) product report

File and Object Storage

Download DataCore Swarm product report

Also Known As

No data available

Caringo Swarm

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)

Swarm provides a platform for data protection, management, organization and search at massive scale. You no longer need to migrate data into disparate solutions for long-term preservation, delivery and analysis. Consolidate all files on Swarm, find the data you are looking for quickly, and reduce total cost of ownership by continuously evolving hardware and optimizing use of your resources.

DataCore

Sample Customers

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

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend

iQ Media, NEP, Texas Tech University, Telefónica, City of Austin, Massive Media, Data Deposit Box, Premier Physician Services, Truliant Federal Credit Union

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. DataCore Swarm