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CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs Microsoft OneDrive for Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 23, 2025

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 Content Collaboration Platforms
10th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (8th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Storage (11th), Cloud Backup (11th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd)
Microsoft OneDrive for Busi...
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft OneDrive for Business is 9.6%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

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.
Victor Bayouwa - PeerSpot reviewer
I love the backup capabilities and the offline sync
We use OneDrive to share documents throughout the organization and collaborate. It is also used for backups.  The backup capability is one feature I love about OneDrive. I also like how it syncs when you're working offline. Everything is updated once you connect again. It takes too long for…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution."
"CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow."
"CTERA's instantaneous and redundant file replication, available across multiple geographical locations, ensures easy and user-friendly recovery."
"The support is awesome. It is top-notch. I would rate their support a ten out of ten."
"CTERA has out-of-the-box data protection capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the amount of space allotted to each user that is issued a subscription."
"It's pretty easy to learn. Once someone taught me, I was able to navigate it quite easily."
"It helps you keep organized."
"Ability to share documents."
"They have support for integration with a lot of tools."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that Microsoft OneDrive works with any Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office app. You can edit a document on the cloud, share documents with your colleagues, and monitor changes. You can access your work almost anywhere. You can also sync Microsoft OneDrive with your workstation so that whatever you are working on gets automatically backed up to the cloud at regular intervals. So even if your system crashes, you still have a copy of your documents in the cloud, which I found very useful."
"The backup capability is one feature I love about OneDrive. I also like how it syncs when you're working offline. Everything is updated once you connect again."
"It was extremely easy to setup."
 

Cons

"One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy."
"More monitoring from the platform would be good. There is some monitoring, but it is paid. It is a chargeable service. It would be good for that to be included in the base."
"It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices. We have different regions, and we must log in to each portal to see what's happening with those. It would be nice to have a single portal to see the health of the devices, versions, and firmware upgrades. Sometimes, we want to dive into something more complex, like investigating why CTERA storage usage grew from 2 terabytes to 4 terabytes in a week. That's a little challenging. It's something we would like to see on the road map."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I am looking for a process where version upgrades do not impact the customers. There is no downtime."
"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."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"The security is not as flexible as it is with Dropbox, which means that we can't share our OneDrive files."
"Support has not been the same since the beginning of COVID lockdowns."
"Recent functionality changes have actually made the product more confusing to use."
"An online video player would be great, since sometimes you have to download the video to play it."
"Performance is an issue when sharing a large number of files in a single folder."
"It is not very stable because there are a lot of bugs."
"The file structure insight could be made more flexible like for creating more flexible folders."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"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."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"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."
"We pay a lot for the Enterprise version, but it is a premium service."
"The price of Microsoft OneDrive is reasonable and compatible with competitors."
"The licensing is expensive and on a yearly basis."
"Costwise, it is a great option. In most cases, it is a free space, which will be more than enough for most customers."
"Using this software, it has had an amazing impact moneywise on our business. It allows us to share documents without the need of extra hardware."
"OneDrive comes with Microsoft 365 so it is just an added part of that package."
"This is a pricy solution, given that we are only using it at 50% capacity."
"It is free if you are using Office 365, and you get a terabyte of storage with your account."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
69%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
University
3%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

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...
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Also Known As

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MS OneDrive
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Chevron, Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, DBS, Nestle, Lowe's, MGM Resorts, Textron, MGM Resorts
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. Microsoft OneDrive for Business and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,564 professionals have used our research since 2012.