Azure Storage Previews File Share Service

Azure File service is a file storage offering, currently in preview, that enables creation of traditional Server Message Block (SMB) file shares on Azure. The file shares are accessible from Azure virtual machines (VMs) and services using native SMB file APIs, and from remote applications through Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs. The service is part of Azure Storage and could be useful for migrating file shares to Azure to retire aging on-premises server farms or providing remote access to file shares. However, the current preview of the service has limited security configurations and is based on SMB 2.1, which limits performance and file sizes.

File Shares as a Service

Traditional SMB-based file shares are commonly used to share files between servers, applications, and users, but they are usually located on-premises and limited by physical storage capacity. On-premises file shares are commonly used for creating server-based storage for each user (home directories), but they can also be used to accumulate and store server diagnostic data, such as logs, metrics, and crash dumps for analysis by local system administrators.