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Azure Files vs Red Hat Ceph Storage comparison

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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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Azure Files
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (24th)
Red Hat Ceph Storage
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), File and Object Storage (2nd)
 

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.
Yogesh Autade - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Engineer at Softcell Technologies Limited
Centralized file sharing has improved security and compliance but still needs better analytics
From our experience, Azure Files could be improved with more granular performance visibility, simpler troubleshooting tools, and enhanced reporting around file shares, uses, and access patterns. We would also prefer more streamlined management for large-scale development deployments, better monitoring of SMB and NFS performance issues, and deeper integration of storage analytics to help identify bottlenecks and optimize cost efficiency. Another area where Azure Files could improve is the administrative experience for hybrid environments. More intuitive troubleshooting for authentication, SMB connectivity, and synchronization-related issues would help reduce operational efforts. Enhanced reporting, proactive recommendations, and clearer root cause analysis and diagnostics would also be valuable for storage and infrastructure teams managing large deployments.
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited
Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments
I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Using this solution has improved our consolidation ratio and it saves us a lot of space."
"We noticed a dramatic increase in application performance when moving it from NetApp to Pure Storage."
"Everpure FlashArray has positively impacted my organization, particularly in performance and reliability, as we've had good improvements, making our applications run faster and giving us more confidence that they will not crash."
"Having fast storage allows actual servers to perform in high capacity so we don't have slowdowns on our applications."
"We only have storage provisioning, so the provisioning feature is good. The compression and deduplication are good."
"The console is simple to use. It has good performance. It is easy to install, understand, and manage, with a good ratio of deduplication and compression. It is doing its job."
"The amount of throughput that we're getting is really nice."
"The most valuable feature is that maintenance is free."
"We see a clear return on investment with Azure Files, primarily through reduced infrastructure management effort and improved operational efficiency."
"If we need to migrate data, Azure Files allows a seamless data migration."
"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."
"We have some legacy servers that can be associated with this structure. With Ceph, we can rearrange these machines and reuse our investment."
"The ability to provide block storage and object storage from the same storage cluster is very valuable for us."
"Red Hat Ceph Storage is a reliable solution, it works well."
"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."
"I would definitely recommend Red Hat Ceph Storage. It is a complete solution for cloud-native storage needs."
"We have not encountered any stability issues for the product."
"Most of the features are beneficial and one does not stand out above the rest."
 

Cons

"There was some complexity in the initial setup."
"The setup needs to be improved the most. They can do a little more with the user interface, but the setup is what I would like to see made a bit easier."
"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve the recent file storage capabilities because it is lacking a lot of features."
"I think the pricing for Pure Storage FlashArray is the major issue because all the great things come with the price, and a lot of customers simply are not willing to accept it."
"The number of Filesystems is limited, which it is not on the EMC VNX."
"The product could improve by providing the capability to support NAS storage – CIFS and NFS."
"We would like to be able to connect to data tape for backup, specifically to the LTO backups."
"I would like to see them develop the ability to integrate with more AWS services."
"I think if Azure Files could integrate migration using Storage Mover, that would be an improvement."
"From our experience, Azure Files could be improved with more granular performance visibility, simpler troubleshooting tools, and enhanced reporting around file shares, uses, and access patterns."
"Routing around slow hardware."
"I have not identified any drawbacks, however, the response to public platform inquiries could be faster."
"We have encountered slight integration issues."
"I would like to see better performance and stability when Ceph is in recovery."
"It takes some time to re-balance the storage in case of server failure."
"Ceph Storage lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication. That is a huge loss in terms of performance."
"When it comes to the capabilities of Red Hat Ceph Storage such as object, block, and file storage, I am not fully satisfied."
"What could be improved in Red Hat Ceph Storage is its user interface or GUI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While more expensive than NetApp, Pure Storage FlashArray offers superior performance that often justifies the higher cost and adds value overall."
"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"It's priced higher than the market."
"The pricing of Pure Storage FlashArray is reasonable."
"You get what you pay for. It is expensive, but it really works."
"I'm good with the licensing. Of course, pricing can always be less... It's actually not a bad pricing model, considering I don't have to rip-and-replace."
"There are no licensing fees aside from the support."
"When you are paying more than you were paying for the storage space, you'd like the cost to be less. If they could get into the spinning disk kind of cost, that would be it."
Information not available
"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."
"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."
"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."
"The operational overhead is higher compared to Azure because we own the hardware."
"The price of this product isn't high."
"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription​​ as a bundle.​"
"We never used the paid support."
"There is no cost for software."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
 

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...
What needs improvement with Azure Files?
From our experience, Azure Files could be improved with more granular performance visibility, simpler troubleshooting...
What is your primary use case for Azure Files?
Our primary use case for Azure Files is centralized file sharing, application data storage, and replacing traditional...
What advice do you have for others considering Azure Files?
I would recommend this product without hesitation. I would also recommend starting with a pilot workload to validate ...
How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...
What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?
Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about th...
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Ceph Storage?
I do not have experience working with solutions such as Red Hat Ceph Storage and StorPool. I have plenty of experienc...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
Ceph
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
Information Not Available
Dell, DreamHost
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Files vs. Red Hat Ceph Storage and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.