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CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs Google Drive Enterprise 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

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Cloud Storage
10th
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
12th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Backup (12th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd)
Google Drive Enterprise
Ranking in Cloud Storage
8th
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 3.1%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Drive Enterprise is 2.1%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection
The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.
AshwinMor - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers the most simplest and easiest UI to use
I would not like many changes in the tool, but I think the 15 GB space provided by Google Drive Enterprise needs to be increased to around 25 five GB, as it would be really helpful for users. These days, the resolution of pictures and everything else has been increased. If you take a picture from an iPhone, it could easily be of around seven to eight GB. Photos are memories that one would want to keep or store properly. I believe that it is not possible to save a lot of photos in Google Drive Enterprise since it only provides 15 GB to users. The product does not offer a bit more storage space for users, which makes it an area that needs to be considered for improvement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features I find most valuable are in the gateways themselves. They have done a great job over the years of providing insight into what is happening with our products, with the batches that come through that are scanned. I enjoy that part of it, and it is fairly easy to use from our standpoint once we get to know the product."
"The best feature is the migration tool within CTERA."
"The solution provides substantial flexibility, allowing the separation of workloads across various hardware platforms without vendor lock-in. This flexibility makes it adaptable to future infrastructure changes."
"The solution provides data eviction, where unused data is evicted from the local file, freeing up space. It also allows data to be rehydrated from the cloud when needed."
"CTERA stood out due to its ease of use and superior security features."
"CTERA has out-of-the-box data protection capabilities."
"I like that the glass is always half full with CTERA file services. It keeps the data hot for users on location and then tiers off older data. If you need it, the stub is still there. You can click on it, and it's back on the device."
"CTERA has been particularly capable of keeping all of our workstations backed up. That became a critical feature for us during the pandemic when computers were rarely in the office. Everybody went off-site with their computers, and we were accustomed to working with a centralized storage infrastructure where people would come to the office and connect to the server to use, create, and modify files. Everything was done directly to that server."
"Simplicity while competently serving the needs of secure document storage and sharing is part of the beauty of the product."
"The program is very stable."
"can create Google Docs links directly in Google Drive and choose whether to give edit or view access. As the owner of the link, I like that flexibility."
"The most valuable feature of Google Drive Enterprise is storage and the mobile version. We can connect to Google Drive, on our Android phones and store all our documents, for later access at any time. It is a very flexible solution."
"We can use the product to store large documents we cannot always carry."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to share files."
"It allows multiple users to work simultaneously on a document."
"The solution is very easy to scale."
 

Cons

"I am looking for a process where version upgrades do not impact the customers. There is no downtime."
"One of the bigger things that I would like to see is additional logging. There are logs in there. They provide us with the initial logs on what is happening on our CTERA device. I appreciate that, but they do not give us any further information. I would like to have more information on the logs themselves."
"One suggested improvement for the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the ability to distribute data across multiple active backend storage nodes rather than the current limitation of a single active node."
"They fixed all the requirements that we had in the beginning. The beginning was a little bit rough, but we tuned it nicely. However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"The web portal that our users access to view data and backups could be optimized. CTERA could apply some of the improvements made to their administrative interface on the user side. The administrators are a much smaller group of people than the users, so it would be helpful if they targeted user experience resources to them."
"The new Edge filer that they have comes with a lot more features than what we purchased. It would be better if we are able to add those extra features without having to swap out the hardware. A clear upgrade path for legacy customers would be beneficial."
"One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy."
"The solution is relatively new and takes some time to get used to."
"The solution could improve User Access Management by showing more detailed information of which users have access to folders or files. For example, you can see which users have access one by one, but there is not a dashboard that can show what user has access to a library document."
"I also use Word from Microsoft Office. Sometimes it's difficult to find some features that are available in Office and not available in Google Docs or are in a different place (if you are more used to Word). We sometimes lose time trying to find certain useability features."
"If somebody has made changes, for example, there should be a timestamp. Also, if two or three people are working and someone deletes something, a mechanism to retrieve the previous version should be available."
"I had some issues with permissions at first. I have to ask for Drive permissions because I'm a new doctoral student. Sometimes I have to ask for permission because I can't access this kind of document, but recently they fixed that by adding me to their team. Now I can access any document that my department supervisors and staff share on Drive."
"It should have more features similar to Office 365. To improvise more, they should compare their features with Office 365."
"Security is the only area where there are certain shortcomings in the product where improvements are required."
"The product must provide more storage space."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is hard to compare the costs if we want to retain the same model of a separate high-performance storage or certain things, but it is one of the cheapest solutions available in Israel."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"I find the pricing reasonable. They offered us deals that helped us. Especially with the upgrade to a bigger unit last year, they were helpful with the deal."
"It is fairly priced. I am not too involved in the pricing of what we used to pay, but it would have reduced the cost of ownership. I cannot give a figure, but the EMC solution was very expensive compared to CTERA."
"CTERA's pricing model is competitive compared to other companies that achieve the same thing. Their closest rival is Nasuni, and CTERA is significantly more affordable than Nasuni."
"CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure. They all have benefits, but CTERA is competitive for its features."
"The licensing is yearly. We pay for the high-tier subscription."
"I use the free version."
"In the free subscription, Google Drive Enterprise provides limited integrations. You get basic integration features, but for more extensive API usage, a paid subscription is required. Even with the paid subscription, there are limits on free API usage, such as a certain number of calls per day or month."
"I use the free version."
"I have evaluated Amazon AWS and IBM solutions. Amazon AWS has competitive prices for cloud storage and backups."
"The product is available for free, so I don't need to pay for it."
"The product is free."
"It has a yearly license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
70%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Educational Organization
4%
University
3%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
11%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...
What do you like most about Google Drive Enterprise?
With Google Drive Enterprise, multiple people can edit a document, and you can open it as Google Docs.
What needs improvement with Google Drive Enterprise?
The search function in Google Drive Enterprise could be improved as it currently requires looking through many documents to find the right one. I am not aware of the security level it provides, and...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Drive Enterprise, Google Drive
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Journal Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. Google Drive Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.