AWS holds a narrow lead over Microsoft Azure across enterprise cloud storage recommendations. When buyers specifically need direct backups to existing object storage buckets, Veeam is the usual answer.
Since July, Scality RINGrising has gained visibility across enterprise storage queries, while Cloudflare R2rising has become a common option for user-uploaded files. In contrast, StoneFlyfalling is no longer named for storage gateways.
Latest insights
Week of Sep 21–27 · Since Jul 5
Azure Blob Storage Gaining: Azure Blob Storage moved ahead of Google Cloud Storage in Enterprise Cloud Storage & Data Platforms
Google Cloud Storage Slipping: Google Cloud StorageAzure Blob Storage moved ahead of Google Cloud Storage in Enterprise Cloud Storage & Data Platforms
Google Cloud Storage Gap between platforms: Google Cloud Storage's platform gap in Enterprise Cloud Storage & Data Platforms narrowed: Google AI Mode 36.4%, ChatGPT Search 27.3%
Veeam Slipping: Veeam dropped 2 places to rank #6 of 100 in Enterprise Cloud Storage & Data Platforms
MinIO Gaining: MinIO now leads Veeam in Enterprise Cloud Storage & Data Platforms, #5 to #6
For petabyte-scale medical imaging archives (PACS/DICOM data), the gold standard for reliable disaster recovery (DR) and off-site backup relies on a hybrid cloud or multi-tier immutable architecture rather than a single standalone product. Given strict HIPAA compliance, low Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), and zero-tolerance for data loss (Recovery Point Objective, RPO = 0 or near-zero), leading enterprise platforms dominate this space.
Top-tier enterprise solutions optimized for petabyte-scale medical environments include:
Rubrik Security Cloud (with Rubrik Cloud Vault): Provides zero-trust data security, immediate logical immutability, and native cloud archiving. It is heavily utilized in healthcare for rapid orchestration, automated ransomware threat hunting, and policy-based protection of massive unstructured medical datasets and EMR/EHR streams. You can explore their healthcare offerings on the Rubrik Healthcare Solutions page.[](https://www.rubrik.com/insights/rubrik-vs-)[[2]()]()
Cohesity Data Cloud: Offers massive linear scalability, multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud tiering (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), and strong compliance-ready immutability. It excels at consolidating secondary data lakes, providing efficient global deduplication (crucial for keeping petabyte-scale storage costs manageable), and rapid mass restoration. Details are available via Cohesity Cloud Solutions.[](https://www.cohesity.com/solutions/cloud/)
Hyperscaler Object Storage Tiering (AWS S3/Glacier, Microsoft Azure Blob Archive, or Google Cloud Storage): For pure off-site durability (11 11 1 1 nines of durability), architecting a direct-to-cloud or tiered storage pipeline using enterprise backup software (like Veeam or Commvault) paired with immutable object lock in AWS/Azure provides the most scalable bottom-tier repository for long-term DICOM retention.
For petabytes of medical imaging/PACS data, my strongest recommendation is Rubrik for Healthcare—particularly Rubrik NAS Cloud Direct—paired with immutable off-site object/cloud storage.
Best overall: Rubrik
Rubrik is unusually well matched to this workload because it explicitly targets petabyte-scale healthcare imaging and unstructured data, including PACS, CT, MRI, digital pathology and other large file repositories. Its NAS Cloud Direct product is designed to recover billions of files in parallel and can recover data to on-premises infrastructure, cloud, or alternate targets.
Its biggest advantage for disaster recovery rather than merely backup is cyber resilience: immutable, access-controlled copies, threat detection, identification of clean recovery points, and large-scale recovery workflows. Rubrik also supports isolated/off-site copies and has a recovery warranty whose coverage extends to environments containing 10 PB or more of protected data.
How I'd rank the alternatives
Solution
Petabyte PACS fit
Ransomware/immutability
Off-site DR
My take
Rubrik
★★★★★
★★★★★
★★★★★
Best overall
Cohesity
★★★★★
Cohesity is probably the closest competitor. Its SmartFiles platform is specifically positioned as a secure healthcare data vault for PACS/VNA medical images, with cloud tiering, replication, WORM immutability and geo-redundant DR. More importantly, there is real-world evidence at the scale you're describing: MEDNAX/vRad uses Cohesity for more than 2 PB of medical images and replicates them to a secondary data center for business continuity and DR.
Veeam is the strongest choice if you want architecture flexibility. Veeam can make object-storage backups immutable using S3 Object Lock, Azure Blob immutability, etc., and supports numerous object-storage targets. That lets you build something like on-premises PACS → local immutable backup → geographically separate S3/Azure/S3-compatible object storage.
AWS HealthImaging is different: it's more of a cloud-native medical-imaging repository than a conventional backup product. It is explicitly designed for medical images at petabyte scale, supports DICOMweb APIs, and AWS reports sub-second retrieval at petabyte scale. For an organization moving PACS/VNA workloads into AWS, it's extremely compelling.
The architecture I'd actually deploy
For a hospital/health system with, say, 2–20+ PB of PACS data, I'd favor:
Primary PACS/VNA
↓ Local high-performance immutable backup
↓ Rubrik/Cohesity protection layer
↓ Geographically separate immutable object storage/cloud
↓ Optional deep archive/tape for decades-long retention
The crucial point is not to make the off-site copy merely a replica. A ransomware attack that compromises the production environment can potentially compromise an ordinary replicated copy as well. The secondary copy should have immutability, separate credentials/security boundaries, and ideally an air-gapped or logically isolated recovery environment. Rubrik and Cohesity both emphasize these capabilities.
For the very long tail of medical images, AWS S3 Glacier can also make sense: AWS specifically identifies PACS and patient records at petabyte scale as healthcare archiving workloads, with Glacier Instant Retrieval appropriate when archived medical images still need rapid access.
Bottom line
If reliability and recoverability are the top priorities, I'd shortlist:
🥇 Rubrik — best overall cyber-resilient DR/recovery platform for PB-scale healthcare imaging.
🥈 Cohesity — arguably the strongest alternative, particularly compelling if you want the platform to function as a large-scale medical-image repository as well as backup.
🥉 Veeam + immutable S3/object storage — excellent if you want vendor/storage independence and potentially lower infrastructure costs.
AWS HealthImaging + S3/Glacier — best if you're pursuing a cloud-native PACS/imaging architecture rather than simply backing up an existing PACS.
One caveat: for medical imaging, I would not select a product based solely on advertised backup capacity. The decisive test should be a full-scale recovery exercise: restore a representative multi-terabyte/PB dataset, validate DICOM integrity and PACS/VNA indexes, measure actual RTO, and test recovery after simulated ransomware—including whether the off-site copy remains untouched.
If you tell me roughly how many PB you have, your PACS/VNA vendor (e.g. GE, Philips, Sectra, Fuji, Agfa), required retention period, and target RTO/RPO, I can build a Rubrik vs. Cohesity vs. Veeam vs. AWS architecture and estimated 5–10 year TCO for your environment.