Azure File Storage: 5 Pros and Cons You Should Know About

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Choosing storage is as important as choosing a house. Storage, in a sense, is the home of your digital data. It’s where your data rests, where it multiplies, and where it returns to after moving to a temporary destination.

While storage isn’t as physically restricted as a house, expansions or moving out can be as challenging, if not more so. Do as much preparation in advance, to ensure that you’re moving your data to the right place. Read on if you’re considering Azure File Storage as the new home for your data.

What is Azure File Storage?

Azure Files is a shared storage service that lets you access files via the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, and mount file shares on Windows, Linux or Mac machines in the Azure cloud. You can also cache file shares in on-premises Windows Servers using the Azure File Sync agent.

Azure File Storage has proven itself tremendously useful for many organizations, especially in “lift and shift” scenarios, where there is a need to move legacy on-premises applications to the cloud without changes. At the same time, many in the community have voiced concerns with the ability of the Azure Files service to sustain large scale and enterprise requirements.

5 Azure File Storage Pros

The main advantage of Azure File Storage is in its simplicity. The service requires almost no learning curve and works with familiar, readily available technologies. Below, you’ll find five reasons users find Azure Files productive.

1. Fully managed service
Azure Files does not require management of hardware or operating systems. It can replace an on-premise file server with minimal maintenance overhead.

2. Shared access
Azure File Storage supports the SMB protocol which is used by most on-premise applications, allowing you to replace existing file shares with Azure file shares without any change to legacy applications. Your applications can continue sharing files between multiple machines, whether located on-premises or in the Azure cloud.

3. Redundancy
Azure File offers geo-redundancy, ensuring your data is always stored in multiple Azure data centers. This provides 99.999999999% durability for your data. Keep in mind durability does not equal high availability—data may not be available at the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) or Recovery Point Objective (RPO) your organization requires.

4. Easy automation
Azure Files can be automated using tools familiar to most programmers, including PowerShell and the Azure CLI, as well as by administrators using the Azure Portal and Azure Storage Explorer.

5. Easy APIs
Azure File Storage offers convenient file system APIs including Azure Storage Client Libraries and Azure Storage REST API.

5 Azure File Storage Cons

Users in larger enterprises or managing large data volumes may experience the following challenges with Azure Files.

1. Security and access
Azure file shares require using the storage account key, which provides access to your entire storage account. You have to distribute this key to users, which can cause severe security issues. File shares are also accessible externally using the UNC path and key, and there is no way to block access from outside Azure.

2. Backup
There is no snapshot mechanism or automated backup for Azure Files. Data is replicated to deal with data center or machine failure, but you won’t have a solution for accidental data loss or deletion by users. The comparative Amazon service, Amazon EFS, has a similar issue where backups are not automated, and require copying entire volumes to another cloud location.

3. Performance
Azure Files offers limited throughput of 60MB/s, and various other performance-related limitations. The new Premium tier addresses some of these limitations, but it comes at extra cost.

4. Size limitations
Azure file shares have a limit of 5TB per storage account. It is possible to use up to 20 storage accounts, pushing this limit up to 100TB, provided you are able to distribute the data between multiple storage accounts. Again, the Premium tier offers higher scalability up to 100TB. Either way, for some organizations these limits will be a major issue.

5. File system limitations
Azure Files imposes a limit of up to 1TB for individual files, up to 200,000 file system objects, and object name length of up to 255 characters. Because Azure Files is often used for legacy applications, you may run into these limits from several directions.

For example, if you are migrating a database with huge archive files you may run over the 1TB limitation. On the other hand, if you are migrating a traditional file system with a large number of frequently-accessed files, you may run into the total objects or name length limitations.

Azure is well aware of these limitations, which is why we can now see new partnerships between Microsoft and thrid-party companies. NetApp, for example, has created a native solution for Azure File Storage, which integrates seamlessly with Azure. This is a paid service offered by Microsoft, charged at GiB/hour. You can add Microsoft support for $29/month.

Conclusion

The good thing about Azure File Storage is that it works well with quick migration strategies, like the “lift and shift”. Azue File is easy to use. You can configure automation pretty fast with PowerShell and the Azure CLI.

Unfortunately, when it comes to enterprise-level operations, Azure File won’t necessarily meet your standards. If you do decide to go with Azure Files for your enterprise storage, keep in mind that there’s a good chance that you will need a third-party add-on. Otherwise, you might need to find another way to extend the capabilities of Azure Files, or choose a different storage repository for your enterprise operations.