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Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Quantum ActiveScale comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Amazon EFS (Elastic File Sy...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (11th), File and Object Storage (14th)
Quantum ActiveScale
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
File and Object Storage (27th)
 

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.
reviewer2784675 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Technical Account Manager at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Serverless file storage has simplified multi-tenant Linux workloads and supports effortless growth
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number of IOPS limitation. Initially, the number of IOPS that could be performed on the Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) file system was quite low. Later on, it has been increased, and now I believe it is at a level where only very specific workloads might not perform optimally, but otherwise everything should work smoothly. By the time I was there, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) was supporting NFS version 4.1, not 4.2. Currently, it is supported up to NFS 4.1. A notable limitation of Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is that it does not support Windows. If your workload is running on a Linux operating system and you do not want to manage it or even understand NFS at all, you should still be able to use it fairly quickly. There are scenarios where Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not work effectively. For example, 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. This process takes time, so if you are running a database-type workload, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) might not be the right approach, and you would need to look elsewhere.
FL
Architecture Department at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good performance and reliable but the setup is complex
We would like to see a self-sufficient installation. Nowadays it's open-source, but the installation is still tied to the vendor, which means it is unlikely that it is going to scale. I want them to tap into the broader community. It is really emerging, they have a year over year, 50% annual growth. With a 10-year-old company, it will certainly bring a lot of interest, and will certainly make it more successful, if they tap into that growing customer base. They have to make themselves relevant to the industry. The industry is totally geared to the Cloud, DevOps, and geared for agility. The software with the appliance in my set is already outdated, and it is not that it cannot sell, but it has to be tapping into the emerging and growing sectors to continue with the customers and businesses. This is what the requirement is, to improve their technology. Which means that they have to make themselves relevant to the industry.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We also like the compactness, the small footprint. It takes up very little space in a data center and uses little power."
"It's easy to use, and the maintenance upgrades to get free controllers work really well."
"It has made working with storage as easy and simple as it should be."
"Pure Storage FlashArray has significantly improved our data center performance. It handles high workloads efficiently, providing better performance in the environment. With increased storage capacity, it has led to improved overall system performance. The tool's technology is a standout feature. It has helped me reduce storage costs by 15 percent."
"Pure support is very proactive, they monitor our infrastructure in real-time, so they respond before we even open a ticket."
"The most valuable feature is its speed."
"The most valuable features I have experienced are the centralized management and redundancy under speed of the right disk."
"Pure Storage FlashArray offers numerous valuable features, such as low latency and high throughput."
"I appreciate Amazon's extensive range of services, which makes it a favorable choice."
"The automatic scaling functionality has helped manage fluctuating workloads because when we have 10 gigs of data and a customer needs to put even 10 times the data, no action is required as it will grow automatically."
"The solution is quite stable."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is an excellent service that provides a serverless solution with unlimited storage and easy configuration."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"We can run code and deploy it whenever we want."
"There are huge money savings, as we can save more than half of our costs."
"The technology is stable which is good."
"The operations and the functionality are very simple."
"Quantum ActiveScale is a reliable solution."
"Workflow is easy to manage and maintain."
 

Cons

"The file functionality could be better."
"The higher education moves slowly. We are still looking forward to implementing the full list of existing features."
"There's always an opportunity for new feature functionality."
"There is not a great need for improvement, but better pricing could be beneficial."
"The connectivity needs improvement. You do not have the possibility to have a file and block connectivity at the same time on the same machine. It has limited ability to do so."
"Pure Storage takes a hit in the minds and opinions of some of the customers because they cannot customize things as much as compared to a legacy storage provider's appliance such as NetApp, Dell EMC, or even HPE."
"The scalability of the solution is extremely costly."
"The product could improve by providing the capability to support NAS storage – CIFS and NFS."
"The lack of transparency in the costs attached to the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Elastic File Systems can be expensive due to the nature of data transfer costs, using services like SSTP, and potentially being costly in a rate-shift context."
"Initially, the cost of storage seems to be small, but customer cost for the storage is really very high and this doesn't work for India."
"What should be improved in Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) is the costing, as it should be reduced, but that depends on Amazon."
"EFS could be improved by including a one-click setup."
"The product's stability has some shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Specifically, when it comes to the file system for the learning system, we encountered performance issues with both Azure and AWS."
"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."
"I'd like to see more integrations with different systems and for the product to be more scalable."
"We would like to see a self-sufficient installation."
"Lacks some ability to integrate with different systems."
"The setup is very complex, it took 18 hours for the first setup."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our Evergreen Storage subscription is supposed to be good when we go to upgrade."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I would rate the pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray a five out of ten. It is expensive but not too much."
"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."
"The price, in general, is around $100,000, however, I know it costs more."
"I think that the pricing is less expensive compared to other standard products in the market today. Even the support contract and maintenance services cost less when compared to market-leading products like EMC."
"The cost was initially high, but once more people were using it, the costs came down. This was because the University was reselling it to other departments."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"It has flexible pricing. You are charged based on your storage."
"Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) offers a pay-as-you-go model, so whenever you use its services, you need to pay."
"The solution's price is mid-ranged."
"The product's price depends on the services and the size and capacity at which it is used in a business environment."
"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 charges are based on the amount of data stored."
"I would rate the pricing 7 out of 10."
"Quantum ActiveScale is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Media Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
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 find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
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 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 Amazon EFS (Elastic File System)?
When I started working with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), I faced a few issues. One issue was around the number o...
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Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
ActiveScale, Quantum ActiveScale Object Storage, ActiveScale Object Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Arcesium, Atlassian, Seeking Alpha, Zend
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs. Quantum ActiveScale and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.