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Microsoft Azure Block Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

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

Microsoft Azure Block Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp Cloud Volumes Servic...
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
19th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (18th), Cloud Storage (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is 0.9%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Public Cloud Storage Services
 

Featured Reviews

MatsHagberg Olsson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers secure data management with affordable tools and minimal hassle
The most valuable feature is that it's very affordable in comparison to competitors. The absolute best feature is the Azure Storage Explorer tool. The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease. Additionally, the joint use of Azure portal further facilitates management depending on my location.
CC
Enables us to fine-tune storage and capacity on the fly as our needs grow or shrink over time
NetApp delivers High Availability. It's critical to our work. That was the main driver for using NetApp. We have a highly resilient service and if you have a highly resilient service, you are only as resilient as the least resilient part of your infrastructure. That's what we were having trouble with our file system before. It was becoming troublesome, so we needed to find something that was much more highly resilient so that's why we moved to NetApp. The complexity of moving large numbers of files to the cloud depends on what you're trying to do. But for us, it was really simple. I imagine for large enterprise customers it is probably pretty tricky. They're probably on all different technologies inside a large corporation and they may or may not have very large pipes going to them. So if you're in a data center to the cloud then it's going to be easy, but if you have hundreds of branches like if you're a bank and have lots of branch banks, they might have very small pipes out to the internet. It might take forever. In our use case everything's brand new files, so it was pretty trivial. We didn't migrate to the cloud, we were already on the cloud, so it was a nonissue for us. NetApp enables us to share data across VMs. It actually reduced the amount of data storage we need. We were having to have storage attached to each VM. And now we can aggregate that storage across multiple VMs, so that actually gave us a net reduction, which was a good thing. We switched from using block storage to file storage to share data between our VMs. It made it easier, frankly but I worry about the scalability in the future. For the moment it made life easier. We were using block and then we moved back to file with NetApp.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product’s security features are valuable."
"Its integration is very easy."
"It can be deployed independently and supports every kind of deployment."
"It has capabilities such as versioning and, from a security point of view, you can also back it up."
"Microsoft Azure Block Storage has high-security features and is very reliable. Its maintenance is done through the cloud, which reduces costs."
"Azure Block Storage lets you customize code you can use on that endpoint. If you want to write a logic for something, Azure Function can be used to deploy that application."
"It has easy versioning. The versioning is amenable to any changes. It also has great security. It can only be accessed through an API, and only the requested users can access it. It is optimized for data lakes and comprehensive data management."
"RBAC, access control, soft delete, hard delete, and cool and hot storage tiers are some of the features I have found valuable in Azure Block storage."
"In terms of its storage snapshot efficiencies, the service is highly efficient. We are only doing things in small batches right now because we have not converted all of the data, but we have tested them in the Google Cloud and they work efficiently."
"High availability is very important to us because we have a production environment. High availability is the highest priority for us to continue keeping our systems running."
"Storage was taking up maybe 10 to 20% of my life at the startup, and now it takes up zero. I was personally running all the infrastructure for the company. Now that we've moved to NetApp, I don't have to worry about making sure it's up and running. It's made my life personally much better."
 

Cons

"One of the biggest challenges on Azure infrastructure is that sometimes we don't get what we want. Either we have to wait for it or contact support because something is not working for us... It's the system availability that is the difficult point."
"The solution's downside is related to its documentation, which I believe can be difficult to navigate because it is hidden between or within other pages of the product's manual."
"It is also costly and not cheap compared to Internet-based networks."
"The product is not as stable as we would like it to be."
"I encountered a challenge where certain metadata was located on a secured network that could only be accessed through a VPN. As there was no direct connector available to reach the private networks that require VPN access, we had to rely on manual effort to access the data. This could potentially be addressed as an area of improvement, especially with regard to accessibility issues where data is only accessible through a VPN connection."
"There is a drawback or limitation to the GRS storage feature because depending on the amount of data, it could take a lot of time."
"They could create more readability of files."
"The initial setup isn’t straightforward, whether on-premise or on the cloud. It involves considerable planning and dependencies, unlike conventional systems where a straightforward CIFS connection might suffice."
"The user interface has room for improvement. We would like this service to be more integrated with Azure, which is very easy to manage and use. It was easy to create volumes and add capacity pools in Azure, but in Google Cloud, we can only create separate volumes. We need more management or configuration options in the user interface."
"It would help if they increased the area in which they employ artificial intelligence, by starting to do assessments on the environments, to project those. They're not using any AI tools, currently, on the administrative side."
"I would like for the sales team to get in contact more often and let me know what I should be doing next, what we should be doing about new features. So it would be nice if I heard a little bit more from him. From a technology perspective, I have no complaints."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage is expensive. They should provide a more efficient cost."
"I use Microsoft Azure Block Storage's free version."
"Microsoft Azure Block Storage is not an expensive tool. I'm subscribed to the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors program, so Microsoft gives me between $120 to $150 credit each month."
"I would rate the pricing as five out of ten."
"I would rate Azure a three out of ten for pricing."
"The price of Microsoft Azure Block Storage could be less expensive."
"I rate the product price as seven on a scale of one to ten, where one means low price and ten means high price. The tool is expensive. There are no additional costs attached to the product, so it is available at a fixed price."
"Azure Block Storage is higher priced than its competitors."
"We don't need so much space, and there is no option to pay as we go or use just what we need. Also, the only way to increase performance is by increasing the level of the service."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
7%
Educational Organization
34%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
We use the solution to develop SaaS platforms on Azure. We utilize various Microsoft components like block storage and databases for this purpose.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
Our experience with pricing has been positive. The budget for Microsoft Azure services has been within expectations for the last couple of months. The cost for Azure Data Factory ( /products/azure-...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Block Storage?
We encountered an issue where enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure ( /products/microsoft-azure-reviews ) doesn’t support it. We had to set ...
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Also Known As

MS Azure Block Storage
CVS for Google Cloud, NetApp CVS for Google Cloud, Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud, Cloud Volumes Service for GCP, NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for GCP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
Atos, Bandwidth, Wuxi NextCode
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Block Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.