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Azure Blob Storage vs Azure NetApp Files 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Blob Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (6th), Cloud Storage (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloud storage has simplified team data access and provides reliable, globally available redundancy
The first thing I find really useful about Azure Blob Storage is that it is a cloud service running on the cloud. Using cloud storage, all the things are actually running on the cloud and they are managed by the cloud vendor. Microsoft is managing the backend things. I am just monitoring and managing the things, and I do not need to think about the physical things, upgrades, and all those things. That is managed by the OEM, which is a good thing. Additionally, it is globally available anywhere, so there are advantages in communications with the clients and all those things from that side. The main benefit that Azure Blob Storage provides for me is redundancy. They have multiple types of redundancy from the storage perspective, such as local redundant storage and zone redundant storage. Data will be available anytime, and that kind of assurance they are giving us is actually the main reason I can say for the Azure perspective. Access is one area where Azure Blob Storage can improve, as they have multiple types of storage. In Blob Storage, they also have file shares and queue storage. I have not seen any issues with Azure Blob Storage right now, and the access features allow us to grant the minimum level of access to the users, so users can only read the data. I can say those are also good features from an Azure Blob Storage perspective, and I have not seen anything negative there.
AjayKumar13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud/Data/Database Manager at a government with 10,001+ employees
Fast, reliable, and helps meet our SLAs
The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes. It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable. You don't need to take the snapshot. Snapshots are compressed. It doesn't take storage from the back end. It takes three minutes to do sixty terabytes of the database. You don't have to go to the tape and store it outside, which takes hours and hours. It also uses a lot less of the storage. It's very easy to restore or copy the snapshots to other locations for disaster recovery. There are a lot of benefits. In terms of the snapshot's rapid restore capability, we were testing the load of performance testing, and we needed to rebuild the DR site. If I need to rebuild the DR for a standby database, it takes sixty terabytes to copy onto the another site, which will take at least a day. Now, the snapshot is easy. We just copy the snapshots, and then we do the cross-region application. The snapshots came along with that, and that's where we were able to build the DR site within a few hours rather than days. All together, instead of a four-day process, instead of a day.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Azure Blob Storage is globally available anywhere, allowing for good communication with clients and taking advantage from that side."
"The main benefit that Azure Blob Storage provides for me is redundancy."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"It has saved a lot of time. Because in the older, conventional hardware system, they need to raise a ticket to go to storage engineering, then storage engineering would increased the size. Now, it's dynamic. You don't have to do anything. This improved the time by more than 50 percent."
"We use Azure NetApp Files mainly for backup."
"One aspect of Azure NetApp Files that I truly appreciate is its remarkable performance capabilities."
"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."
"We recommend this solution to our customers because of its ease of use, availability, and security, but they don't usually go for it because of its price."
"Azure NetApp Files gives our clients better options."
"Its security and ease of use are most valuable."
 

Cons

"The initial setup for Azure Blob Storage is right now simple, but they could improve the implementation in the future, particularly around configuration, access-related management, and related things."
"A proper monitoring dashboard would help, allowing us to see the usage and IO utilization."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon."
"The main area for improvement is in the support ticket system. Since it's a SaaS platform, support tickets are managed by Microsoft or NetApp backend. This can sometimes lead to cross-functional challenges for organizations."
"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."
"Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."
"I don’t like the solution’s configuration and support."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"It is expensive, especially with NetApp Ultra Storage."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
"In the cloud, pricing depends on how you manage it. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's all about optimizing charges and showing the cost back. So, it's more about managing the expenses rather than being inherently expensive or cheap."
"NetApp is a premium offering, so it's not a cheap product, but it is well-priced. It combines a couple of properties which customers like us are willing to pay. Could it be cheaper? Yes, but if you combine fully supported, fully managed, easily provisioned, scalable, and quick all in one product, it's a good selling point. You can ask a lot of money for all these. If you have a use case like we do, it's a perfect match. It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud. It is totally worth the cost."
"The solution’s combination of the ease of use, simplicity, and reduction in IT management versus the cost has helped a lot. It is very fast to deploy. It's very easy to maintain. You don't have to do a lot in the cloud to maintain this thing, so it gives good performance. It's fast to deploy, easy to maintain, and it gives a better performance. These are the most basic three criteria for any application. This saves cost because the manpower you need to deploy is going down. You're getting better performance and not buying new resources. You have resources available in the cloud. It's just a couple of clicks, then you're good to go."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Azure Blob Storage?
A proper monitoring dashboard would help, allowing us to see the usage and IO utilization. If there is any monitoring application, it could help us get more information about how many users are con...
What is your primary use case for Azure Blob Storage?
We have moved multiple things not only from the physical perspective but also to the cloud, and I can say that we have moved to Azure. Currently, I have started working on Azure cloud, and I am usi...
What advice do you have for others considering Azure Blob Storage?
Azure VMware Solution, which is abbreviated as AVS, is a VMware solution that I am using. I am not using any other Azure solutions beyond Azure Blob Storage, and most of the storage is Azure Blob S...
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?
The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
NetApp ANF, ANF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
SAP, Restaurant Magic
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Blob Storage vs. Azure NetApp Files and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.