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Cohesity SmartFiles vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in File and Object Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (15th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (8th)
Cohesity SmartFiles
Ranking in File and Object Storage
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
Ranking in File and Object Storage
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (5th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.6%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cohesity SmartFiles is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 2.9%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
File and Object Storage Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)2.9%
Pure Storage FlashBlade5.6%
Cohesity SmartFiles0.7%
Other90.8%
File and Object Storage
 

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström - PeerSpot reviewer
Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades
In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.
SM
Enables effective data management with reliable backup and recovery
Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents. The architecture supports backup, ransomware awareness, and data management on a converged platform, offering triple-protocol access (NFS, CIFS, and S3) while facilitating gradual improvements in access rights management. It allows for redundant setups, with automated backup and recovery options in a cloud environment.
Amarnath Charugundla - PeerSpot reviewer
Unified management and cost-effectiveness lead to positive experiences and future savings
Improvement is necessary wherein the memory or storage should not breach 90%, because if breached, it becomes unmanageable. We have to set alerts or CPU triggering for 95% for the first warning. Other activities on nodes or file systems should be properly maintained. We must monitor the dashboard for P1, P2 alerts in the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) file share system including SMB, NFS, objects, and blocks. Attention should be maintained for any alerts such as CPU, memory, and RAM alerts, as exceeding these creates issues within teams. If triggered to 95% and forgotten, it crosses the SLA breach, causing disturbances to application, web, and platform teams. Continuous monitoring on the Nutanix dashboard is essential. Even a highly experienced person in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cannot provide a 10 rating out of 10 because it is a vast system. I would rate it eight from my perspective.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."
"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."
"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"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."
"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."
"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."
"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."
"Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents."
"We have been able to save local disk space by using Data Lens. We upload 18 GB to the cloud and are able to save 20% to 25%."
"What I found to be the most valuable features were better performance and uptime."
"The best Nutanix Unified Storage features are its recovery and data speeds. It has resolved the issue of accessing information quickly."
"The solution is easy to use, share, and manage."
"Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is very fast in terms of migration and data access with respect to VM, OS, and storage, experiencing a 30% faster performance compared to VMware."
"The migration from VMware to Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is less complex and less troublesome, and the replication and clustering are very good."
"What I appreciate most about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is how easy it is to use and how simple it is to create new volumes and containers, and it's pretty quick."
"The biggest advantage we find with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is the performance, due to it being hyper-converged and using all-flash nodes. The storage is very responsive, and it's significantly easier to manage from the Nutanix Files platform that comes along with NUS Pro."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."
"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."
"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."
"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."
"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."
"Its configuration should be easier."
"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."
"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."
"Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platform failure. It's not suitable for applications needing high I/O or low latency."
"The solution's monitoring and security features could be improved."
"The integration feature with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) could be improved, maybe into a more stabilized version."
"The GUI is not user-friendly for new users and has room for improvement."
"It would be beneficial if there were a migration tool for the new way of syncing data for data protection. Currently, we have 30 days' worth of snapshots going back and forth for data protection. A migration tool to transition to better syncing for DR would be valuable, as otherwise, we lose 30 days because of the storage requirement."
"One thing I'd appreciate is having a desktop application similar to what VMware offered."
"I would like to see the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. That could definitely be a major breakthrough in providing a unified, seamless experience for end-users. It could reduce costs as well as human effort."
"Perhaps Unified Storage could be improved by including artificial intelligence to make searches more effective. Also, if someone has access who shouldn't, it could automatically update, so I do not need to physically remove permission. The platform could do it automatically. AI could make it more self-service."
"According to the keynotes announced by Nutanix the previous day or this morning, the data storage for Kubernetes requires improvement as it has a few shortcomings in the area of operations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."
"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"The price could be cheaper."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."
Information not available
"Nutanix Unified Storage is competitively priced. There aren't any competitors that can do much better for the same price."
"It's competitive and attractive for moving things to it and then prioritizing those newly freed up resources for something else."
"Nutanix's pricing is definitely much better when compared to other storage providers. That was one of the main reasons we switched to this platform."
"The product has an annual licensing fee."
"Nutanix is very competitive."
"Its pricing is good to okay. It is not super inexpensive, but it is still competitive. Everything could always be lower."
"The solution's pricing is better compared to other products."
"The solution's pricing is fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
27%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise63
 

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity SmartFiles?
SmartFiles is an economical solution, priced per terabyte on the backend. Initial setup and licensing costs align wit...
What needs improvement with Cohesity SmartFiles?
Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platfo...
What is your primary use case for Cohesity SmartFiles?
Our customers use Cohesity SmartFiles ( /products/cohesity-smartfiles-reviews ) in conjunction with Cohesity SpanFS (...
What do you like most about Nutanix Unified Storage?
Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?
It is very cost-effective compared to the traditional environment. With new hardware, it's a long-term investment but...
What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?
To improve Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), cost is always an issue for every company, especially when we talk about la...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
1. Acer 2. Adobe 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. Aon 9. Apple 10. ATT 11. Autodesk 12. Bank of America 13. Barclay's 14. Bayer 15. BlackRock 16. Boeing 17. BNP Paribas 18. Cisco 19. Coca-Cola 20. Comcast 21. Dell 22. Deutsche Bank 23. Equinix 24. ExxonMobil 25. Ford 26. GE 27. Google 28. HP 29. IBM 30. Intel 31. JPMorgan Chase 32. Kroger
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Dell Technologies, Nutanix and others in File and Object Storage. Updated: October 2025.
872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.