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Microsoft Azure Block Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
Organizations achieve 90% cost savings with Azure Block Storage, enhancing security and promising further cost reductions over three years.
Sentiment score
7.6
Nutanix Unified Storage offers significant cost savings, enhanced productivity, and scalability, improving resource allocation and disaster recovery capabilities.
For me, the biggest return on investment when using this solution is that we do not have to have much support staff to run it.
The scalability challenge with previous systems is lessened with Nutanix since we can expand by adding new hardware without needing migrations.
We are saving approximately 20% to 25% compared with the competition.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.5
Customers find Microsoft Azure Block Storage support responsive but desire faster access to expert help and more consistent assistance.
Sentiment score
8.0
Nutanix Unified Storage support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, with high satisfaction despite occasional delays for complex issues.
The response time for enterprise support needs improvement.
They come on the call, start troubleshooting immediately, and resolve issues effectively.
They are very knowledgeable, and if they can't solve the problem, they find the answer within a day or so.
I would give the customer service and technical support a ten out of ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly scalable, easily accommodating diverse project sizes with seamless vertical and horizontal scaling support.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Unified Storage offers scalable, flexible expansion with seamless capacity adjustments, praised for supporting diverse workloads efficiently.
The ability to scale is well-supported.
It is a significant advantage of the product.
We are on a premium plan, which should handle scalability automatically.
This means you don't have to buy everything upfront; you can buy what you need and add more as you grow, which is advantageous.
These three components utilize scalability tools, enabling storage addition to nodes and supporting independent, linear performance growth.
I can rack mount the server or node and add it to the cluster anytime with just one click.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Azure Block Storage is highly stable and reliable, though some large users experience broader service instability and slow downloads.
Sentiment score
8.5
Nutanix Unified Storage is praised for its stability, reliability, minimal downtime, seamless updates, and efficient data management.
It isn't as stable as sound storage systems in a premise environment.
Overall, the stability is very good.
None of the other storage vendors have all these features so easily manageable and fast to set up as Block Storage.
We have not experienced these issues with Nutanix, which I attribute to the all-flash technology, the quality of their platform, and the responsiveness of the hyper-converged infrastructure.
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is very stable.
It automatically triggers tasks, causing performance issues.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Azure Block Storage encounters issues with cost, support, integration, UI complexity, stability, scalability, security, and performance.
Nutanix Unified Storage needs better simplicity, security, integration, cost efficiency, support, and improvements in interface, protocols, and analytics.
Its compatibility with various platforms could be enhanced to allow for a seamless operation across different cloud environments.
Some alternatives are cheaper and available for long trial periods before the payment.
Enabling SFTP on Microsoft Azure Block Storage didn’t allow us to get the IP address, as Azure doesn’t support it.
The main concern is pricing, which could deter some customers; addressing this would enhance its appeal.
The system should move towards AI-driven optimization and enhance S3 object storage capabilities.
System downtime can disturb the entire ecosystem and impact all applications.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is cost-effective with pay-as-you-go pricing, but extra costs for backup and data access occur.
Nutanix Unified Storage offers competitive pricing, valued for performance and flexibility, but can be costly for smaller businesses.
For medium-sized companies, especially when discussing cost and scalability, it can be quite expensive.
The cost for Azure Data Factory, utilized for intensive data migration, was high but expected, as it's a one-time activity.
It is reasonable, however, it can be cheaper.
Compared to buying three or four vendor solutions, it is much cheaper.
The cost has doubled for the same amount of data, which was a challenge when presenting use case justifications for the increased cost.
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) has definitely helped reduce our total cost of ownership.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Azure Block Storage is praised for its security, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and seamless integration with strong management and deployment features.
Nutanix Unified Storage offers scalable, centralized management, enhancing performance, accessibility, and security for efficient IT infrastructure.
The tool allows me to download to my device, control access, and manage data with ease.
The ability to increase and scale out is really easy, allowing us to manage a large amount of data with reduced dependency on scalability issues.
I can store data, use the storage account as a queue, and the pricing is also quite economical.
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is appreciated for its fault tolerance and redundancy at the cluster level, which ensures reliable storage of files, folders, and other information accessible on the client side.
The cybersecurity features of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) when dealing with unstructured data, such as ransomware threats, provide the ability to detect and back up block-based storage, allowing me to restore repositories or sets of block storage with one button click, which is automatic.
My experience with using Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) for data-intensive workloads is that we have many SQL Servers and they perform much better than they did when we used hybrid converged previously.
 

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
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (6th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), File and Object Storage (2nd), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)
 

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 Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 1.8%, up from 0.8% 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.
Vipin Kumar Sha - PeerSpot reviewer
Pricing challenges overshadow efficient data handling and fast deployment
In terms of improvement areas for Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), pricing is a significant issue, and another aspect is that the export of Nutanix backups does not support CD-ROMs, which is a disadvantage. Currently, it only supports QZ bus types for backups, which limits compatibility. When comparing Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) with other solutions in the market, it falls short because it only supports iSCSI backups, while competitors also support QZ, iSCSI, fiber channel, and NVMe storage. The solution requires no maintenance for patching since it is designed effectively, but Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) does not support fiber channel connectivity or external attached storage through NAS, limiting its compatibility. Additionally, technical support response time and efficiency are lacking in comparison to competitors.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
32%
Educational Organization
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
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?
Nutanix solutions are often perceived as premium-priced, but they deliver substantial ROI in terms of performance, reliability, and ease of use. Organizations should evaluate the TCO holistically, ...
What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?
Nutanix Unified Storage is already a robust and forward-thinking platform. That said, one area for potential improvement is pricing. While it offers great value through its features and support, mo...
 

Also Known As

MS Azure Block Storage
Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mazda, BlinkBox, Rakuten Showtime, Xbox One, Serko, ChronoDrive
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 Microsoft Azure Block Storage vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.