Purpose:
The purpose of this post is to discuss the "options" available when creating an Azure File Share. There is quite a bit of documentation that discusses Storage Accounts and Azure Files but it can be confusing to reconcile all of the docs with the terms, levels, and the portal experience. The purpose of this article is to simplify or "decode" the process of creating an Azure Storage account for the purpose of hosting an Azure File Share.
Assumptions: General knowledge of creating Azure Storage Accounts and Azure File Shares will be helpful.
Steps:
Here is a graphic and some information that should help simplify or "decode" the process from end-to-end as we walk through it.
When creating a new storage account you are first presented with the option to choose the "Performance". The two options available are Standard and Premium. One of the main differences between these two performance layers is that Standard is backed by HDD and Premium is backed by SSD. One of the next options to choose from is the Storage Account Kind or Type. Because this is for the purpose of hosting Azure File Shares, for the Standard performance level you must choose the General Purpose v2 and for the Premium performance level you must choose "FileStorage".
The next option to choose from is the Replication, which as the diagram shows, does have four options on the Standard performance and two options for the Premium performance. A detailed breakdown of these options can be found in the resource links section at the bottom.
Finally, the last option to choose is the File Share Tier, which is at the File Share level and not the Storage Account level (like all previous options). For Standard performance you have Transaction Optimized, Hot, and Cold. Each of these tiers have performance and cost implications. On the Premium performance it defaults to Premium File Shares.
As the Azure Portal and Documentation continue to evolve, the experience of creating/configuring an Azure Storage Account and Azure File Share will inevitably change. This post is intended to simplify the options available for choosing the right storage options to host Azure File Shares. The goal is to make it easier to know what is available and which one suits your needs best.
Resources:
Planning for an Azure Files deployment | Microsoft Docs
Frequently asked questions (FAQ) for Azure Files | Microsoft Docs
Data redundancy - Azure Storage | Microsoft Docs
Special Thanks to @SherriBabylon and @PatrickHorn for contributing to the research and documentation for this post.
Posted at https://sl.advdat.com/3ksaOaY