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

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
9.2
Amazon EFS offers scalable, cost-effective storage with minimal maintenance, enhancing productivity and benefiting businesses through pay-as-you-go pricing.
Sentiment score
7.5
Organizations achieve 90% cost savings with Azure Block Storage, enhancing security and promising further cost reductions over three years.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Amazon EFS support is often praised but mixed reviews highlight occasional delays and high costs for responsive assistance.
Sentiment score
5.5
Customers find Microsoft Azure Block Storage support responsive but desire faster access to expert help and more consistent assistance.
While the time to respond was good, the time to resolve was not optimal, as it took more than a week.
Amazon's support model is consistent across services.
Training and support depend on the plan you have, with centralized support being very helpful in case issues arise.
The response time for enterprise support needs improvement.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon EFS is praised for scalability, quick deployment, and auto-scaling, with some latency challenges noted in specific environments.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly scalable, easily accommodating diverse project sizes with seamless vertical and horizontal scaling support.
Its auto-scaling feature is a crucial point, providing high scalability that I would rate at ten out of ten.
Elastic File Systems allow me to scale up or down easily.
It is very cost-effective, and there's no need for initial charges.
The ability to scale is well-supported.
It is a significant advantage of the product.
We are on a premium plan, which should handle scalability automatically.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Amazon EFS is stable and reliable, with minimal issues, handling applications effectively and receiving high user ratings.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly stable and reliable, though some large users experience broader service instability and slow downloads.
Amazon EFS is extremely stable, as it is managed by AWS.
While I experienced an EFS mount dropping, it was related to server issues rather than EFS itself.
It isn't as stable as sound storage systems in a premise environment.
Overall, the stability is very good.
None of the other storage vendors have all these features so easily manageable and fast to set up as Block Storage.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon EFS requires improved Windows support, performance, and security measures to enhance usability for technical and non-technical users.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage encounters issues with cost, support, integration, UI complexity, stability, scalability, security, and performance.
Enabling AI-driven or automatic features would be beneficial for new or nontechnical users.
In my project, there are challenges related to AWS, such as ensuring proper security measures with IMS code and encryption.
Its compatibility with various platforms could be enhanced to allow for a seamless operation across different cloud environments.
Some alternatives are cheaper and available for long trial periods before the payment.
Enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure doesn’t support it.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon EFS offers flexible pricing, but data transfer costs in India are high, impacting overall affordability.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is cost-effective with pay-as-you-go pricing, but extra costs for backup and data access occur.
EFS could cost around $30 to $50 per month for similar usage.
Amazon EFS is more costly compared to other storage options available from AWS.
Elastic File Systems can be expensive due to the nature of data transfer costs.
For medium-sized companies, especially when discussing cost and scalability, it can be quite expensive.
The cost for Azure Data Factory, utilized for intensive data migration, was high but expected, as it's a one-time activity.
It is reasonable, however, it can be cheaper.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon EFS offers scalable, flexible storage with seamless AWS integration, enhancing infrastructure with speed, security, and cost-effective auto-scaling.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is praised for its security, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and seamless integration with strong management and deployment 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.
They help me process data while maintaining low latency, which is crucial for efficient data processing.
The most valuable feature of Amazon EFS is its auto-scaling capability.
The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease.
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.
I can store data, use the storage account as a queue, and the pricing is also quite economical.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (9th), File and Object Storage (10th)
Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Public Cloud Storage Services (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Services solutions, they serve different purposes. Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is designed for Cloud Storage and holds a mindshare of 6.9%, down 9.6% compared to last year.
Microsoft Azure Block Storage, on the other hand, focuses on Public Cloud Storage Services, holds 0.9% mindshare, down 1.1% since last year.
Cloud Storage
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MatsHagberg Olsson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers secure data management with affordable tools and minimal hassle
The most valuable feature is that it's very affordable in comparison to competitors. The absolute best feature is the Azure Storage Explorer tool. The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease. Additionally, the joint use of Azure portal further facilitates management depending on my location.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...
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 Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
We use the solution to develop SaaS platforms on Azure. We utilize various Microsoft components like block storage and databases for this purpose.
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 for the last couple of months. The cost for Azure Data Factory ( /products/azure-...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
We encountered an issue where enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) doesn’t support it. We had to set ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Azure Block Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Microsoft Azure Block Storage and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
860,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.