Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs VxRail 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
CTERA Enterprise File Services reduced costs and time, minimized manual storage, and eliminated SSD and alternative storage needs.
Sentiment score
6.6
VxRail streamlines management, reduces costs, enhances flexibility, and boosts performance, offering significant long-term value and operational efficiency.
Adding SSD storage to Windows file servers is expensive, and we no longer need to back up those devices.
I am positive that CTERA has helped reduce the total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for manual storage management and reducing storage service processes.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform provides responsive support, rated highly for proactive assistance and efficient issue resolution by knowledgeable agents.
Sentiment score
8.0
VxRail customer service is highly rated for dedicated support, though experiences vary; centralized support is particularly appreciated.
They swiftly address concerns and take ownership of the call, providing a very satisfactory support experience.
High-priority issues are handled promptly.
I would rate their support a ten out of ten.
A key area for improvement for VMware would be response time.
The support is all provided by Dell, and it is quite good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform is scalable and easy to expand globally, though CPU and memory licensing constraints may pose challenges.
Sentiment score
7.8
VxRail offers scalable solutions for diverse workloads, enabling seamless growth across enterprises with efficient management and quick expansions.
If we need to upgrade CPU and memory, we should be able to do that without a license upgrade.
CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow.
It offers good scalability options, including vertical and outward scalability.
There are limitations, such as the inability to upgrade from a single to dual CPU in certain configurations.
Scalability is easy with VxRail.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
CTERA's platform faced initial bugs but improved over time, earning high stability ratings with reliable data access.
Sentiment score
8.5
VxRail is highly praised for its stability, resilience, minimal disruptions, and effective updates, earning high customer satisfaction scores.
It has been pretty stable since then.
We had things deployed for years, and we were suddenly getting cloud sync issues that were crashing our sites.
It is very stable and reliable.
It is a very stable and mature product, with centralized management and upgrades being perfect for us.
The product is very stable, and I rate its stability as nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

The CTERA platform needs improvements in monitoring, updates, UI, logging, and performance, while users value current features and support.
VxRail faces challenges with setup, compatibility, integration, support, and costs, suggesting improvements in automation, pricing, and scalability.
AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring.
It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices.
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.
It requires a very clean environment to proceed without issues.
The major issue with VxRail is the razoring process, which can only be performed by Dell.
Stabilizing the update procedure further would make it better.
 

Setup Cost

CTERA offers cost-effective enterprise file services with flexible licensing, providing significant savings over EMC and Nasuni, especially in Israel.
VxRail offers bundled pricing suitable for enterprises, balancing high initial costs with long-term savings and flexible payment options.
Unlike other solutions that require hardware purchases, CTERA offers software licensing with flexibility across multiple infrastructure providers.
CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure.
I find the pricing reasonable.
Previously, the cost was higher, however, recent changes in VMware pricing have reduced it.
The cost varies for us as a large company because we receive special offers from Dell.
Purchasing VxRail is quite expensive compared to a simple Dell server.
 

Valuable Features

CTERA excels in scalability, flexibility, data management, and protection, making it ideal for hybrid cloud and remote work environments.
VxRail provides seamless upgrades, centralized management, high availability, robust storage, and scalability, enhancing IT operations and performance.
As soon as something is written to the device, CTERA copies it to the cloud, where it's versioned with snapshots so we can recover it.
A vital advantage of this platform is its instantaneous recovery capability, allowing seamless access to a secondary gateway if the primary one fails.
It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution.
Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.
The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN.
The features of VxRail that we find most useful for our customers include the easy update mechanism and the support for both VMware and hardware.
 

Categories and Ranking

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (8th), Cloud Storage (11th), Cloud Backup (11th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (3rd), Content Collaboration Platforms (10th)
VxRail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
132
Ranking in other categories
HCI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is designed for File System Software and holds a mindshare of 9.4%, up 5.0% compared to last year.
VxRail, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 17.8% mindshare, down 21.1% since last year.
File System Software
HCI
 

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.
Rami Jadallah - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades
The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which File System Software solutions are best for your needs.
858,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
69%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
4%
University
3%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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...
How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VCE VxRail
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Nasuni, CTERA, Panzura and others in File System Software. Updated: June 2025.
858,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.