We compared Microsoft Azure File Storage and Azure NetApp Files based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
Microsoft Azure File Storage offers strong security measures and efficient file sharing capabilities, with positive remarks on customer service. The pricing is considered competitive, and businesses have seen a significant ROI. However, users note a desire for faster file transfer speeds and an improved interface. Azure NetApp Files emphasizes high performance, scalability, and seamless workload migration, along with excellent customer support. Users find the cost and setup reasonable, experiencing cost savings and enhanced performance. Feedback suggests a need for improved performance during peak times, better documentation, a more intuitive interface, and enhanced security features.
Features: Microsoft Azure File Storage offers valuable features such as scalability, integration with Azure services, efficient file sharing, strong security, and seamless file management. On the other hand, Azure NetApp Files stands out for its ease of use, high performance, scalability, reliability, and seamless migration capabilities. Additionally, users appreciate its cost-effectiveness and excellent customer support.
Pricing and ROI: The setup costs for Microsoft Azure File Storage and Azure NetApp Files are both considered reasonable and affordable based on user feedback. Users appreciate the straightforward and easy management of setup for Microsoft Azure File Storage, while Azure NetApp Files offers a transparent pricing structure and flexible licensing options., In terms of return on investment (ROI), Microsoft Azure File Storage was praised for its cost savings, improved efficiency, scalability, reliability, and ease of integration. On the other hand, Azure NetApp Files focused on significant cost savings and enhanced performance.
Room for Improvement: Microsoft Azure File Storage could benefit from enhancements in file transfer speed, a more intuitive interface, and expanded storage options. In contrast, Azure NetApp Files needs improvements in performance during peak times, documentation and support resources, user interface intuitiveness, security features, and data migration efficiency.
Deployment and customer support: Based on user feedback, it appears that the duration required to establish a new tech solution can vary for both Microsoft Azure File Storage and Azure NetApp Files. However, Azure NetApp Files seems to offer more flexibility in terms of varying timeframes for deployment, setup, and implementation phases. It is necessary to consider the context in which these terms are used to accurately evaluate the overall time required for the entire process., Microsoft Azure File Storage receives positive remarks regarding its customer service and support, with prompt and helpful assistance. Azure NetApp Files also provides highly recommended customer service, consistently exceeding expectations for a smooth experience.
The summary above is based on 35 interviews we conducted recently with Microsoft Azure File Storage and Azure NetApp Files users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The most valuable features of the solution is replication to another region and the performance. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. The initial setup is straightforward."
"I like the SnapMirror feature in Azure NetApp Files. It helps me create backups with snapshots and makes data recovery and compression."
"The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring downtime, which is a strong point. Based on the money spent, we can get performance improvements and high availability."
"It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something."
"Azure NetApp Files has been stable."
"The critical features of this solution are SnapMirror for replication, data protection, and SnapLock."
"Using NetApp Files got us out of a really difficult situation quickly, effectively, and at a reasonable cost."
"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."
"It is a very scalable solution. I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten."
"It is very easy to use SSTP and some traditional code to move the data into a database because we can easily use the permissions and we don't have any integration or conversion issues."
"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."
"I like that we can copy and download data using Azure. It's not just for file storage; we can also use it for large data sets or to host static web applications."
"I like that Microsoft Azure File Storage works fine and is quick to deploy. It's also easy to connect to it, particularly when connecting it with my on-premise file servers."
"The most valuable aspect of Azure File Storage is that all the features are available in one place."
"It helps us with geo-redundancy."
"It is a good service for file storage."
"We would like to have backup functionality built-in so that we don't run into the issue where the replication process makes a copy of the corrupted data."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."
"I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill. So I can imagine that, not this year, but next year we will be talking about looking deeper into ways how we can optimize the cost."
"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"I would like to see multi-zone redundancy so that I don't have to worry about it. I just back up my data to that one SMB share and I know that it's replicated to a different region."
"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"We would like for the files which are coming in that we can version them. So, if a file is accidentally deleted, there should have a recycle bin option where we can go back, and at least once, clean it up."
"They can improve the ability to assign permissions to different groups or users."
"There is room for improvement in helping customers understand and integrate Azure File Storage into their operations."
"The way retention policies are applied could be more optimized."
"The pricing could be improved. They need to make the costs more transparent so users know what they will be charged and why ahead of time."
"The product must provide better security functions."
"A lot of things could be better, especially when it comes to accessing File Storage for monitoring. Azure Copy is fine, but there could be additional integration and security features for those who want more privacy and control over access to Azure."
"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."
"It’s a challenge to find the right support person."
Azure NetApp Files is ranked 7th in Public Cloud Storage Services with 15 reviews while Microsoft Azure File Storage is ranked 3rd in Public Cloud Storage Services with 44 reviews. Azure NetApp Files is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Azure File Storage is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Azure NetApp Files writes "We can expand our storage on-the-fly without the need to reprovision". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Azure File Storage writes "Various storage options available, high availability, and quick deployment". Azure NetApp Files is most compared with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Nasuni, NetApp ONTAP and Google Cloud Storage, whereas Microsoft Azure File Storage is most compared with Amazon EFS (Elastic File System), Wasabi, Amazon S3 Glacier, Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage. See our Azure NetApp Files vs. Microsoft Azure File Storage report.
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