Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct comparison

The compared NetApp and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. NetApp is ranked #8 in CM , with an average rating of 7.3, and holds a 14.6% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #9 in SDS , with an average rating of 7.0, and holds a 7.6% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 77% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Azure NetApp Files

Read 17 Azure NetApp Files reviews

1,025 Views
66 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...

Read 10 Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct reviews

1,500 Views
828 Comparison Views

77% willing to recommend

Azure NetApp Files

Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Azure NetApp Files and Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Zerto, Nasuni and others in Cloud Migration.

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Buyer's Guide

Cloud Migration

June 2025

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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

Azure NetApp Files

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (8th), Cloud Storage (8th), Public Cloud Storage Services (10th)

Microsoft Storage Spaces Di...

Average Rating

7.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (9th)

Mindshare comparison

Azure NetApp Files and Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Azure NetApp Files is designed for Cloud Migration and holds a mindshare of 14.6%, down 17.9% compared to last year.
Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, on the other hand, focuses on Software Defined Storage (SDS), holds 7.6% mindshare, up 7.4% since last year.

Cloud Migration

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar13

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.

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Stanislaw Mielicki

Solution architect at Netland

Achieve cost-effectiveness with superior performance while needing to address cluster support

I am working with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct for applications, SQL, and VRS. I am an integrator for this solution The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct. They introduced the All-Flash array using SSD or NVMe drives without cache drives. It is…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of the solution is replication to another region and the performance. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. The initial setup is straightforward."

"It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable."

"One aspect of Azure NetApp Files that I truly appreciate is its remarkable performance capabilities."

"The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes."

"You can change it non-disruptively. You can increase the size and decrease the size online, which is a huge benefit compared to Azure disks. It just works seamlessly. You don't need to stop the instances."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is its flexibility."

"Its security and ease of use are most valuable."

"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."

More Azure NetApp Files pros

"The flash ability, in terms of tiering and caching, is amazing"

"The price performance is the best advantage of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct."

"It's mainly about the storage expansion, like in hyper-converged solutions."

"The most valuable feature is that there is no single point of failure."

"The most valuable feature are the caching capabilities using the storage class memory."

"Its technical support is excellent."

"The main positive impact that Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct has had on my company over the years is increasing performance; our checks show it is three times faster than VMware, making us extremely happy and motivated to keep using it."

"The performance, reliability, and affordability has been most valuable."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct pros

Cons

"Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."

"I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill. So I can imagine that, not this year, but next year we will be talking about looking deeper into ways how we can optimize the cost."

"The deployment process is somewhat complex compared to other storage solutions."

"The main hurdle in promoting this solution is the price. Its price definitely requires an improvement. It is more expensive than other options, so customers go for a cheaper option."

"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."

"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."

"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."

"The solution needs to improve it's ABS environment."

More Azure NetApp Files cons

"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer service and technical support of Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct a three, as there were issues that the Microsoft team could not pinpoint, leading to delays in finding solutions."

"I think the online documentation needs a lot of work and so do the sizing tools."

"Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution."

"The management tool within this solution could be improved. We would also like to be able to access services like Azure when using this solution."

"More optimization could be done in terms of mirroring."

"The integration is not difficult because there is no GUI, but we need to use a PowerShell command. This makes it difficult to monitor and to see the components' statuses."

"It is difficult to get a hardware compatibility certification for the solution."

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."

"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."

"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."

"The price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."

"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."

"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."

"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."

"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."

More Azure NetApp Files pricing and cost advice

"With the data center licensing and everything that is connected to that, this solution is relatively costly."

"The solution is expensive."

"Cost-wise the product is one of the more affordable within the category of products."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 ...

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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 ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure NetApp Files?

It is expensive, especially with NetApp Ultra Storage.

See all answers

How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Pricing is an advantage of Storage Spaces Direct. Licenses can be on a monthly or yearly basis, depending on the addition of software assurance.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

Microsoft closed the shared cluster support, which is important for the solution. At the moment, the new version does not support shared clusters. The system is easy to destroy as it is integrated ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 36% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 30% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 8% of the time

Nasuni vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon FSx vs Azure NetApp Files

Compared 7% of the time

More Azure NetApp Files Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 62% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 15% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 6% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

Compared 4% of the time

More Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure NetApp Files

June 2025

Download Azure NetApp Files product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct

June 2025

Download Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct product report

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF

MS Storage Spaces Direct

Overview

Azure NetApp Files is designed for unstructured data, virtualized SAP systems, SQL backups, NFS and CIFS protocols, Azure Virtual Desktop storage, and optimizing file share services. It supports high performance and networking integration in Microsoft Azure.

Azure NetApp Files offers features such as SnapMirror for data protection, rapid provisioning, elastic scaling, and ultra-fast SQL backup and restore. It provides a seamless experience with fast snapshotting, high availability, security, and ease of setup. Users benefit from significant performance improvements and the ability to manage substantial workload migrations effortlessly. This service is ideal for environments like Azure Kubernetes Service and cloud EPM platforms, where speed, flexibility, and performance are crucial.

What are the key features?

Flexibility: Adaptable to diverse storage needs.
Rapid response time: Ensures quick data access and operations.
SnapMirror: Provides replication and data protection.
SEC compliance: SnapLock ensures regulatory adherence.
Ultra-fast SQL backup: Quicker backup and restore operations.
Elastic scaling: Easily adjusts resources based on demand.
Fast snapshotting: Enables quick data snapshots.
High availability: Ensures consistent data access.
Security: Robust measures for data protection.

What are the expected benefits and ROI?

Performance: Notable improvement in processing speeds.
Simplicity of setup: Easy deployment and configuration.
Scalable management: Handles significant workload migrations with ease.
Cost efficiency: Allows comparing throughput versus cost effectively.

Azure NetApp Files is implemented in various industries requiring robust file storage solutions, from educational environments where performance boosts are critical to businesses leveraging Azure Kubernetes Service for containerized applications. It supports high-demand environments, optimizing data management and improving efficiency.

NetApp

Storage Spaces Direct uses industry-standard servers with local-attached drives to create highly available, highly scalable software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays. Its converged or hyper-converged architecture radically simplifies procurement and deployment, while features like caching, storage tiers, and erasure coding, together with the latest hardware innovation like RDMA networking and NVMe drives, deliver unrivaled efficiency and performance.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic

Acuutech, Quest Technology Management, Bradley, Mead & Hunt

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp, Zerto, Nasuni and others in Cloud Migration. Updated: June 2025.

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