Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp StorageGRID comparison

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. NetApp StorageGRID

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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 May 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp StorageGRID is 5.7%, up from 4.7% 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.

Read full review

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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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Object-based storage and offers intuitive management tools, making it easy to configure and maintain

The only thing missing is flexibility in configuration to cater to specific customer requirements. Another area of improvement is marketing. NetApp's marketing of StorageGRID isn't optimal. They should present it more effectively, especially in regions like Pakistan. Here, I haven't seen any marketing campaigns from NetApp for StorageGRID or the Solid State Platform (SSP). While StorageGRID is a globally recognized product, I haven't seen any marketing efforts from NetApp in Pakistan. Even competitors are promoting object storage solutions here, but NetApp seems less efficient in selling StorageGRID. There might be one or two customers, but even as a NetApp partner, I'm not aware of any major sales. I've been trained on StorageGRID, and it is a good product. I'm unsure why it hasn't gained traction in Pakistan compared to other countries. So, I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan. I'm pretty confident that if we have one example of successful StorageGRID implementation in Pakistan, other customers will follow suit.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

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

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

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"The solution provides many controllers."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

"The solution's technical support is good."

"Amazon EFS offers the flexibility of scaling as needed without requiring pre-provisioned storage."

"We are not that big of a cloud user. We just use it for the storage of our bytes. The most valuable aspect is the 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 initial setup was straightforward."

"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."

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) pros

"The technical support team is reliable and responsive."

"The most valuable feature is tiering."

"The feature of StorageGRID that I find most valuable for ensuring data durability and protection is its Information Lifecycle Management functionality."

"Right now, we have an older StorageGRID. I like that we can grow it."

"NetApp StorageGRID is a great alternative to AWS S3 buckets."

"NetApp StorageGRID is a great alternative to AWS S3 buckets. Erasure coding is very valuable."

"The implementation with NetApp went smoothly. It is a 'setup and forget' type of appliance."

"It has enabled us to save money on storage costs. We removed our tape library."

More NetApp StorageGRID pros

Cons

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"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."

"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."

"I have not seen ROI."

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

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"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."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

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

"The user activity needs to be more connected."

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

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

"I don't have notes on improvements."

"It could be better in connecting with Windows Server instances."

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

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

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) cons

"I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system."

"The processes around installation and upgrade need improvement."

"The price is something that NetApp could improve, as with most companies. NetApp is known for not being the cheapest storage option, which is also valid for StorageGRID. There are other storage options on the market which we are aware of and have done proofs of concept for, but you cannot really compare the list prices because, as a big user of NetApp storages, we have totally different prices than some list prices. Still, the price information we got for other options are almost always less expensive than StorageGRID."

"Beyond the initial setup, this product is a little bit difficult to configure."

"The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be better."

"The only real issue that we have run into is, when we are cloning, we cannot do a thin provision clone, it has to be a full clone."

"Improvements need to be made in the support area."

"The redundancy and reliability are great, but I also see room for improvement there. I would like to see more efficiency in the storage and dedupe/compression solutions."

More NetApp StorageGRID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

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

"The price is a little high."

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

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."

"The pricing is quite flexible and depends on the specific customer requirements. The initial cost is primarily based on the desired capacity, so it's not a fixed price."

"Buying the solution is expensive, but it saves you money down the line when you factor in the logistics of not having to buy tapes."

"The licensing that the S3 service provides them from a FabricPool standpoint is more attractive than the licensing from AWS or Azure."

"It is very cost-effective."

"NetApp is not known for being the cheapest storage option on the market. Almost all of the other storage options we looked at were less expensive than StorageGRID. The price is one thing to criticize, which is what we hear internally and from customers as well. They find the cost of the terabytes in this class of storage a little bit higher than expected."

"The price is attractive."

"Creating your own data stores, backups, or storage grids, helps eliminate all these costs of downloading all the data back after you downloaded to the cloud."

More NetApp StorageGRID pricing and cost advice

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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

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

19%

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

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

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 NetApp StorageGRID?

The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?

I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances.

What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?

The product's continual innovation and enhancement in integration capabilities with other NetApp solutions could be b...

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Comparisons

Compared 21% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% 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

Dell PowerStore vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

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

Compared 53% of the time

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

Compared 12% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Compared 9% of the time

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

More Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 25% of the time

MinIO vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 25% of the time

Dell ECS vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 23% of the time

Scality RING vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 7% of the time

VAST Data vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 2% of the time

More NetApp StorageGRID Competitors

Product Reports

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)

Download Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) product report

NetApp StorageGRID

Download NetApp StorageGRID product report

Also Known As

No data available

Storage GRID

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)

Store and manage unstructured data at scale using NetApp StorageGRID for secure, durable object storage. Place content in the right location, at the right time, and on the right storage tier, optimizing workflows and reducing overall costs for globally distributed rich media.

NetApp

Sample Customers

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

Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend

ASE, DARZ GmbH

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. NetApp StorageGRID