Microsoft Azure File Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) comparison

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

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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

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

6th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

All-Flash Storage (6th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), File and Object Storage (3rd), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure File Storage is 10.3%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 1.6%, up from 0.7% 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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Juan-Contreras

System Administrator at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees

Ensures streamlined management, simplified infrastructure, and efficient data handling

It has effectively managed our unstructured data, including audio and video files. We've experienced smooth operations without any complaints regarding uploading or downloading videos. While video usage isn't as frequent, we primarily utilize it for downloading videos related to specific incidents for administrators or our police department. We've encountered no issues uploading files of any kind. Transitioning from VMware to Nutanix has highlighted the overall flexibility of Nutanix's platform. Unlike VMware's three-tier system, Nutanix simplifies the learning curve by streamlining operations. The update process, in particular, has been favorable, with no critical issues encountered. The resiliency of Nutanix hasn't been thoroughly tested in our environment so far. However, I routinely check fault tolerance settings to ensure they meet our requirements. During the update process, I've observed critical errors occur as hosts restart, but Nutanix's self-healing mechanism handles these issues seamlessly. The benefit of using Nutanix is evident in several ways. Firstly, we've effectively compressed our storage while significantly expanding our overall storage pool. Previously, our service had a capacity of twenty-five terabytes, but with Nutanix, we've scaled up to a hundred and twenty terabytes physically and approximately fifty terabytes logically. This expansion has been accompanied by noticeable improvements in performance, particularly with reduced latency and IOPS well within the boundaries of our equipment. All our resources are centralized in a single location for managing and running storage: our data center. We operate three Nutanix nodes within this center, effectively managing everything from one central location. We don't have any other locations outside of our data center running a Nutanix cluster. Nutanix's capability to eliminate silos within our organization's storage infrastructure was discussed during our recent call with the engineer. Although we haven't explored this feature extensively yet, there's a forthcoming project where we anticipate leveraging it.One thing I'd appreciate is having a desktop application similar to what VMware offered. With VMware, I could download a separate client program onto my computer, allowing me to log in directly rather than accessing the host through a browser.

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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

"The product is a reliable cloud solution."

"Implementations with other products are easy."

"It was quick to synchronize back from Azure to the on-premise server."

"The solution is easy to use."

"My client had zero data loss while using the solution for backups and file security."

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

"The storage in this solution is excellent."

"General user familiarity with Office 365 products make adopting this solution easy to adopt in production."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pros

"The product's initial setup phase was simple."

"The scalability, ease of use, and technical support are the most valuable features of Nutanix Unified Storage."

"My company has benefitted from Nutanix Unified Storage because we have everything in a centralized place. With Prism Central, we can go to the console files and do what we have to do."

"The feature that I find most useful in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is the integration with Nutanix Move where you can seamlessly integrate it into your storage."

"Unified Storage's centralized management features enable us to accomplish whatever we want in terms of operations and migrations."

"Nutanix Unified Storage is a simple, user-friendly, and stable solution."

"The customer service executives of all Nutanix products are active and responsive."

"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."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

Cons

"There is a limitation on the storage capacity, like four terabytes. It could be improved to accommodate more data."

"The tool needs to add more controls and enhance Power BI. For instance, I'm just suggesting the visualization layer. Power BI can increase visualization as much as possible, and the product can add more controls to the data flows."

"I would like to see more updates around File Storage."

"The product must provide better security functions."

"Considering the enterprise licensing required for the solution, the cost of the solution is an area where the product needs improvement."

"I have had issues migrating my data to another subscription."

"Sometimes it takes very long to refresh the information."

"Firewall rules should be introduced to secure the access date from any virus attacks. Anti-virus should be introduced in the work filtering and document filtering."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage cons

"The solution needs to be more open to integration with other vendors. Sometimes, we struggle with the support process. Our skilled engineers must explain our problems to everyone, even though we've already done preliminary investigations. The support team follows standard procedures, which can be painful. We're not a small customer, especially in the life sciences sector, so we'd appreciate more specialized support. I've heard Nutanix Unified Storage has teams dedicated to life sciences and healthcare; we should be part of that."

"There is potential to push this product more since it's not common in the market. They could increase their marketing efforts."

"It's still pretty expensive."

"We couldn't access Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) from Prism Central due to bugs. The bugs that Nutanix fixed in newer versions prevented us from accessing Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) from Prism Central."

"There are some techniques that need to be improved because sometimes, during processes, it gets stuck on the console, requiring command line interventions, indicating gaps between the GUI and command lines."

"While Unified Storage has evolved a lot over time, its database handling needs to improve a little. There could be an improvement in terms of costs. It's a little expensive for Brazil but still delivers a lot of performance."

"Its features can be further enhanced from the DR and high availability points of view to match other vendors, such as NetApp."

"When it comes to Nutanix Files, one thing that would be great is a slightly easier way of managing snapshots and restore points, especially when a third party is involved."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are fewer hidden costs involved compared to other solutions, and when our customer is already a Microsoft partner, they typically have access to more affordable fees."

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

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

"I give the pricing of the solution a seven out of ten."

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

"The product's pricing need improvement."

"The pricing could be more flexible."

"The price is comparable to other competitive solutions."

More Microsoft Azure File Storage pricing and cost advice

"It is competitive with other vendors, but you get more for your dollars. It is fairly priced, but not cheap."

"Nutanix Unified Storage isn't expensive."

"I'm happy with the cost and licensing because I don't have big volumes."

"The product has an annual licensing fee."

"It is very good. It is much more competitive than a dedicated storage platform."

"We are Nutanix partners, so it is pretty good. With the free terabyte that comes with the Nutanix clusters, we have started to build proposals for the clients. The price adjustment with the new policy of Nutanix Unified Storages seems attractive. Let us see if it has results."

"The product is neither cheap nor expensive, making it a solution offering a price range that is in the middle."

"The solution is highly-priced."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

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850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

32%

Educational Organization

19%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure File Storage?

The product is a reliable cloud solution.

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.

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 Unified Storage isn't expensive.

What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

The dashboard could be more customizable

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

Comparisons

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 15% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Microsoft Azure File Storage

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Azure File Storage Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 17% of the time

MinIO vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 9% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure File Storage

Download Microsoft Azure File Storage product report

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Also Known As

MS Azure File Storage

Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage

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

Nutanix Unified Storage provides high availability and seamless cloud platform integration, ensuring robust redundancy, scalability, and streamlined management. It supports hybrid cloud connectivity, enhancing storage security and performance.

Nutanix Unified Storage is designed for effective data protection across block, file, and object storage, offering features like ransomware detection and a centralized management interface through Prism Central. Users gain improved SLAs and IT cost savings through its efficient performance. Despite its user-friendly interface, there is a demand for enhanced security measures such as Multi-Factor Authentication and DLP. While its resilience is notable, users seek improvements in protocol compatibility, storage capabilities, pricing, and support processes.

What are the most important features of Nutanix Unified Storage?

User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies storage management and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures continuous operation and reliability.
Seamless Cloud Integration: Compatible with platforms like Azure and AWS.
Robust Redundancy: Protects data against hardware failures.
Scalable Architecture: Easily adapts to growing data storage needs.
Ransomware Detection: Enhances data protection measures.

What benefits and ROI might users find in reviews?

Improved SLAs: Increased service reliability and performance.
IT Cost Savings: Reduces expenses through efficient resource use.
Enhanced Security: Stronger data protection and reduced risk.
Centralized Management: Easier control and monitoring from one dashboard.

Industries implement Nutanix Unified Storage for tasks such as file storage, database performance improvement, and storage solution consolidation. Companies deploying virtual machines, securing against ransomware, connecting hybrid clouds, and backing up data find it useful. It supports workloads like Citrix VDI, Kubernetes, and research data, assisting many organizations migrating from legacy storage for better cost efficiency and reduced data center footprints.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Talon, Camden

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Microsoft Azure File Storage vs. Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)