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Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
233
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (2nd)
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (7th), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (2nd), Public Cloud Storage Services (4th), File and Object Storage (3rd), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (4th)
VMware Software Defined Sto...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (15th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
NISHANTPANCHAL - PeerSpot reviewer
Principle Technical Specialist at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Unified storage has simplified private cloud operations and delivers strong security and ROI
Regarding areas for improvement, I think Data Lens could be enhanced from Nutanix's side, but it has been a long time since I logged into that console, so I do not remember much. It is a SaaS-based offering on the Nutanix portal. It is not something you deploy on-premises; it is not on-prem access. You connect your cluster to the SaaS-based Nutanix and then access the Lens console. I need to check it since it has been almost two or three months since I logged in. Nutanix Enterprise AI actually needs to improve a lot if I compare it with any other product such as NVIDIA and other offerings in the market. Nutanix Enterprise AI still requires a lot of work. I did not check that in much detail technically, but whatever I thoroughly checked, it still lags behind in many features. When it comes to AI-related features, I think the ecosystem of Nutanix is not as big as NVIDIA because NVIDIA has its own inferencing system and model training platform such as NeMo, NeMoTron, and others. Nutanix does not have such things. It can be built using NVIDIA CUDA libraries, but what I saw when I was testing the product is that you can run NVIDIA NeMo and PyTorch and two other things, but as a software, Nutanix does not have an end-to-end platform. That is something Nutanix should focus on.
Mohammad Jundiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at Qatar Datamation Systems
Data security and performance excel but integration and licensing need improvement
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery.  Additionally, I worked with VMware Software Defined Storage both internally and with partners to consolidate servers into one solution The most valuable features of VMware Software…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The benefits were realized right away. Between the flash array and the compression, you can really see how good it is. Our databases run a lot better now."
"Lone segmentation is simpler and more agile. It's improved the velocity in overall provisioning from project to operation."
"My advice to people who want to implement Pure Storage FlashArray is that it's a good NVMe solution, has a lower response time, and also good for entry-level storage purposes, e.g. small offices, small to medium-sized business, etc."
"It helps to simplify storage. For most of our customers, when they move to Pure Storage, storage becomes an afterthought."
"Running SAP on Pure Storage helps a lot without doing any further tuning to improve application performance. Our internal clients are happy."
"FlashArray has many valuable features. It's very user-friendly and it has high availability, so there is comparatively less downtime. During maintenance, there is no shutdown procedure, so you can directly power off the Array and manage the shutdown process without any data loss, which is a unique feature. Managing replication and data migration is also very easy."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"I find that Nutanix’s resilience is the most valuable because it is a feature that is not found in other technologies."
"It is unified. This is the best thing that Nutanix gave to the world. You can do everything from one point."
"The most valuable feature is the unified dashboard, as it allows us to easily observe everything from a single location."
"It's a centralized place for management. With all our virtual machines and Kubernetes in there, it's a single place to manage all of our resources, instead of having to jump around to different places."
"I would recommend Nutanix Unified Storage. It's easy to use, and they are the best when it comes to storage services."
"Whenever we have some necessity in terms of capacity and expansion of infrastructure, it's like a Lego system where they can just place in some more nodes and our needs are met."
"The life cycle managers of the PCMs are very impressive, and I like them. They make our lives easy when managing patches and security updates when they come in. A life cycle manager helps to consolidate different vendors."
"Nutanix has the best customer support in town."
"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."
"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without the requirement of additional hardware, which is the biggest advantage."
"The product is user-friendly from an administrative standpoint and very easy to use."
"The technical support is awesome."
"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."
 

Cons

"Pure Storage FlashArray could improve by being more secure."
"Awareness about Pure Storage needs to increase. Currently, people mostly think of Dell and NetApp when it comes to storage."
"The backend of this solution utilizes an Active/Passive architecture, rather than an Active/Active architecture, which is a disadvantage, when compared to some of its competitors. Its storage capacity should be expanded in the next release."
"What it needs to do is work a little closer with solutions, like VMware, so it understands the particular workloads that are on it. Today, it does not understand the applications which are running against it."
"The scalability of the solution is not as good as it probably could be."
"The GUI is simplistic and basic. I feel like it's explanatory, but not enough, it needs a little more to it."
"Historical analytics would be useful. At the moment, they don't have any type of application built for historical analytics."
"CIFS and SMB Shares cannot be mounted directly."
"The interface could be improved."
"The licensing terms are restrictive, as they go by terabyte cost."
"The integration feature with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) could be improved, maybe into a more stabilized version."
"There are some processes, like if I like to change the data storage to another place, I have to use CLI, and I don't like it since I believe that it could have been simpler in GUI."
"There is some confusion in the reporting when I have to create the report for statistics. I find it is not so user-friendly."
"The interface is not logical. It should be a little simpler."
"I have heard that there have been latency problems."
"Improving quota policies would be advantageous, particularly by offering the option to implement blocking instead of just issuing warnings."
"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."
"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."
"It's easy to scale and expand but the main catch is the cost. It's expensive."
"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."
"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"
"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."
"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you are paying more than you were paying for the storage space, you'd like the cost to be less. If they could get into the spinning disk kind of cost, that would be it."
"The price of Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."
"Our licensing is on a yearly basis. So, every year, we renew. We could do a three-year contract, but right now, we only do a one-year."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"Pure Storage has not helped to reduce our HANA licensing costs."
"Pure Storage FlashArray is expensive."
"We do not incur additional costs beyond the licensing fee."
"We lost a lot of customers because we couldn't compete on price with other vendors."
"I find Nutanix Files Storage competitively priced, even its feature set. Its price is seven out of ten."
"It's definitely a lot cheaper than buying a new EMC array. We bought a five-year commitment on all the hardware and software. I don't know what the cost was back then, but I do remember it was cheaper."
"It is quite expensive otherwise as it comes with three-tier peer underlying hardware."
"The product has an annual licensing fee."
"The solution is highly-priced."
"Nutanix Unified Storage is competitively priced. There aren't any competitors that can do much better for the same price."
"In my opinion, the product is fairly priced."
"The solution's pricing is fair."
"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."
"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."
"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business73
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise161
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise69
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
When comparing cost, I find that the cost is either the same or slightly higher, but that is returned by the ease of ...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
The only thing I think could be improved is price. The price is the main concern for our customers.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?
The pricing for Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is subscription-based with capacity-based licensing and has moderate to...
What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?
One area for improvement I noticed while using Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is expanding advanced analytics and pred...
What advice do you have for others considering Nutanix Unified Storage?
My advice for others looking into using Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is to clearly understand your storage requireme...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?
The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...
What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?
There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...
What is your primary use case for VMware Software Defined Storage?
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Ad...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage
VMware SDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Helse Nord, Sky
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.