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

Microsoft and NetApp are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. Microsoft is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2, while NetApp is ranked #19. Microsoft holds a 10.0% mindshare in PCSS, compared to NetApp’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Read 48 Microsoft Azure File Storage reviews

2,623 Views
1,465 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes Servic...

Read 3 NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud reviews

219 Views
46 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Azure File Storage

NetApp Cloud Volumes Servic...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

Microsoft Azure File Storage and NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud are two prominent cloud storage solutions. Users praise the scalability and integration features of NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud, yet Microsoft Azure File Storage is often highlighted for its robust security and cost-effectiveness.

Features: Microsoft Azure File Storage is valued for its seamless integration with other Microsoft services and strong security protocols. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud is appreciated for its high performance, scalability, and ease of use in multi-cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Users of Microsoft Azure File Storage suggest improving its speed and reducing downtime. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud users recommend enhancing the backup options and lowering costs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Azure File Storage users find the deployment process straightforward with the advantage of extensive documentation and responsive customer service. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud is highlighted for its quick setup and intuitive operation, but some users report delays in customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Azure File Storage is praised for its cost-effective pricing model and lower initial setup costs. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud, though potentially more expensive, is perceived as offering higher ROI due to its advanced features and performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

June 2025

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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 File Storage

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (18th), Cloud Storage (18th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 10.0%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

PrashanthR

Lead Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Seamlessly streamlines document processing with advanced file storage and OCR integration

We need to store data over there. We process documents through Kofax Time is a major benefit, as well as ease of processing. With configuration, it happens quite easily, and we can finish tasks early. File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service. This enhances the processing…

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Colin Constable

Co-Founder at Atsign

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like about Microsoft Azure File Storage is its convenience for customers, cost-effectiveness, and high availability."

"We have not explored the desktop performance analysis of the file storage, but the user interface, API, and the response that we receive over the file storage are very good. We have a lot of customers that connect to the client-side, click the images, and upload them. The beauty of the solution is that we can mount the file storage into a critical server as well as an external drive. The speed that we receive with the images is pretty good."

"File storage is complemented by OCR with Azure Cognitive Service."

"The most significant aspect of Microsoft Azure File Storage is its life cycle functionality, which enables us to transfer files to various storage options, such as hot storage, full storage, and archive. This feature is crucial since we can apply a life cycle method to files that have not been in use for an extended period, and then move them to a cheaper cold storage option to save costs. Since the newest files are stored in the hot storage, it met our specific requirements. Consequently, older files can be transferred to archive and cold storage."

"The tool offers a secure way to access storage. You can also easily share the files securely across Azure."

"The best part is the accessibility to all the files."

"Its simplicity of use is most valuable. It's easy to start working with it and understand it. It's easier to transfer files between different users. I'm able to move files from my device to my manager's device without any issues or without facing any problems in between."

"Its most valuable features are speed and security."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

"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."

"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."

Cons

"It would be helpful if we could remove data that we don't frequently access to reduce the cost of the storage."

"It’s a challenge to find the right support person."

"Microsoft's technical support could be improved. Their response time is usually high, and it takes considerable time to get a response."

"I have used the file storage explorer in multiple systems, and it seems a bit cumbersome and not very efficient, particularly with authentication. It can be tricky to set it up."

"The storage account key could be a security issue."

"In our use cases, we see the weakness in mobile internet connectivity."

"The solution is not user-friendly."

"Microsoft Azure File Storage is not that scalable. Once you reach the boundaries, you need to migrate to another solution."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

"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."

"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."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for both yearly and monthly licenses. The yearly one is cheaper than the monthly one."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being the most expensive. It's not cheap."

"One of the major benefits for AWS is that they have a very large customer representative base where clients can be picked from, they offer large discounts and credit. We were not able to receive the same kind of offers from Microsoft Azure File Storage. We tried to approach Azure while hiring for our disaster recovery discussion, but we didn't receive anything from Azure."

"We have Microsoft Azure File Storage's enterprise license."

"The product's pricing need improvement."

"The licensing cost for Microsoft Azure File Storage comes with an agreement from Microsoft."

"I think the pricing of the product can be reduced."

"The solution is a bit pricey compared to AWS and Google."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

"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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860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Educational Organization

31%

Manufacturing Company

18%

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which file storage system is better - Amazon EFS (elastic file storage) or Azure File Storage?

Amazon EFS is easy to set up: you can use the AWS management console, API, or command-line. Amazon EFS can grow to petabytes and deliver consistent low latencies and high levels of throughput. This...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Azure File Storage?

The product is a reliable cloud solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure File Storage?

The pricing for Microsoft Azure File Storage is five out of ten, not so expensive and not so low.

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Comparisons

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 46% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 21% of the time

Wasabi vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon S3 Glacier vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

Compared 39% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

Compared 32% of the time

Amazon FSx vs NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

Compared 29% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure File Storage

June 2025

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

June 2025

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud report

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud product report

Also Known As

MS Azure File 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

Fully managed file shares that use the standard SMB 3.0 protocol

Key scenarios:

Share data across on-premises and cloud servers
Migrate file share-based applications to the cloud with no code changes
Integrate modern applications with File storage
Simplify hosting for high availability workload data

Microsoft

NetApp^® Cloud Volumes for Google Cloud is a fully managed or self-managed file service that is integrated into Google Cloud with the multiprotocol support, performance, and availability required to run business-critical applications. It is designed to provide massively parallel shared access to thousands of Google Compute Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine instances, enabling your applications to achieve high levels of aggregate throughput and IOPS with consistent low latencies.

Use cases. Customers can use the service to migrate existing enterprise applications to Google Cloud. Other use cases include hybrid deployments, multicloud mobility, big data analytics, web serving and content management, application development and testing, media and entertainment workflows, database backups, container storage, and more.

Features. Multiple performance tiers, standard file interfaces, advanced data management, metered service, fully managed service, native service experience, integrated support, and integrated billing.

For more information:

NetApp: https://cloud.netapp.com/cloud-volumes-service-for-gcp

Google: https://cloud.google.com/netapp

NetApp

Sample Customers

Talon, Camden

Atos, Bandwidth, Wuxi NextCode

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

June 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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