Updated: May 31, 2023 (February 13, 2021)

Azure Files Can Provide Disaster Recovery for File Servers

Jim leads the Directions on Microsoft editorial team and has been writing about technology since the early 1990s. Most recently... more

Azure File Sync, a feature of Azure Files, can provide Azure-hosted disaster recovery for on-premises Windows file servers.
The service could be especially useful for satellite locations with local file servers that need off-site redundancy.
Costs are based on Azure storage and file transactions and can be unpredictable based on activity and data egress.

Azure File Sync synchronizes data from a Windows file server to a file share hosted in Azure Files, a pay-as-you-go storage service that hosts Server Message Block (SMB) file shares in Azure. In the event of local hardware failure or loss of site to a disaster, admins can allow users to directly access the Azure Files share, and File Sync can be used to recover file server data to new hardware. However, File Sync does not provide real-time bidirectional synchronization between Azure Files and a file server, and costs can be unpredictable depending on number of transactions and data egress from Azure.

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