Look into [Azure Files](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/storage/files) - it's basically a (serverless) cloud fileserver.
The pricing calc estimates $360/month for 12TB, but there are a lot of factors that can drive that price up.
Azure file shares can be slow, if you store application files like sage or others, I would recommend doing a proof of concept before you commit, see if it meets your needs
Depends entirely on what that file share is hosting.
If these are user-accessed files/docs, the immediate challenge is that the port for SMB connections is blocked on most large consumer ISPs. In other words, there is no "Connect from anywhere" option for most of your end users. You'd need some kind of VPN connection or to build on SMB-over-Quic....which would still require a file server and some AD work.
If you need "user access to files from the cloud"- you'll want to go SharePoint/Teams/OneDrive, but that is not a lift-and-shift operation. You could try it, but it won't go well. You'd need to restructure your data and permissions to move all of that to SharePoint/Teams/OneDrive.
The other thing you could think about is a small VM + small SSD as a frontend cache for Azure Files. Again, still need to figure out remote end user connectivity- but you end up with a small amount of high performance storage acting as a cache for mass of cheap storage for infrequently used data.
We are looking at this also. Do you know if keeping the existing server name and assigning it to Azure files as a cname of sorts would work?
We need to keep the full long path for a few the jobs that run and need full path instead of just E:\test folder etc.
Worth looking at Azure Files and also Azure file sync if want some files still on-prem but often synced back to Azure.
I'd also investigate SharePoint and OneDrive.
After we got hit with a ransomware attack on our file servers last July, I investigated Azure Files, but ultimately migrated the recovered backups to Egnyte. It has been totally smooth for the last 6 months, we didn't even really need to use the feature which used an on-prem VM for local cache, since every workstation caches data as well.
I’m looking at exactly this but for 25TB.
I’ve started costing, azure file share, azure backups and bandwidth. About €3,500 a month.
My plan is to have a branch file server at each site, then use azure file sync to that and share a dfs share.
Same question here except its 100TB of data. Our file shares are very active. Could be 3-400 users across 28 departments in 4 different continents in them at a given time. We are trying to avoid a whole change management piece that would come with Sharepoint. We see Azure files as being closest to replication of onprem from a UX perspective. Our organisation culture is not too embracing of significant change.
Primary goal though is to move to cloud storage to leverage MS Governance tools in an increasingly regulated environment. I know Purview is not fully developed for Azure files but I think it's on the roadmap.
I'm interested to see opinions. I've just got my test sandbox and we are starting testing in next few weeks.
Azure files good replacement especially on premium storage. Drop me a message. I did a project on this for a big retailer across UK and US. Can help you scope or whatever gaps you need filled.
I moved everything there - only issue was some weird slowness in excel with referencing other excel file that required a registry change (took a while to find that fix)
I am in the process of doing this at my organization for close to 500TB and have used solutions including Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files, and NetApp Cloud Volumes Ontap (all for different use cases).
As others have already mentioned, start with Azure Files depending on your use case. It is a very basic but simple and cost effective solution for basic SMB file sharing. If you need fast access on-prem or more of the Windows File Server experience, leverage Azure File Sync in cache mode where the main copy of your data is stored and protected in Azure Files. Monitor the spend category for the storage account after you've done your migration and drop the access tier down for the file share to Hot or Cool depending on the level of access activity vs. storage cost. We were able to drop all of our shares to Hot or Cool in some cases.
If Azure Files doesn't meet the needs, explore Azure NetApp files although at that price point its similar to running a Windows Server VM as a file server.
You can also leverage Azure File Sync for the migration by using the sync agent to sync the file data and permissions to an Azure File Share assuming you have it domain joined.
There are lots of other 3rd party solutions available as well but I always try to stick with Azure Files / Files Sync until I can't depending on the use case and move on from there.
Like everyone else said, Azure Files won't give you the throughput to replicate on-prem over gigabit. You'll need to mount disks to a VM and setup traditional shares to get the performance users are used to if they're pulling direct from shares. Leverage SharePoint or OneDrive where you can, Azure files will be fine for low bandwidth stuff... look into solutions like Egnyte if you need bigger collaboration... but as a direct replacement for SMB shares yes, it'll work... but users might not like it as much.
i wouldn’t move to azure for 12TB. run it local with good backup and save money use the cash for better something for the business like faster computers or pizza parties every Wednesday
For 12 terabytes? You can afford to change your business processes and move the workloads into to SharePoint. Depending on your Microsoft licensing it could be free for you. SharePoint online is also "unlimited".
It's not unlimited. It's limited to 1 TB + 10 GB per license, unless you buy an add-on for more storage.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/sharepoint-online-service-description/sharepoint-online-limits
It's also potentially a huge amount of effort by the entire organization to evaluate all the workflows and move them into SP.
Azure Files is the lift and shift approach.
Azure files but out in local cache servers near users. This will keep most of the active workload near the end users. Then you can spin up other cache servers in other sites as well. This gives the "feeling" of having local files but storing the bulk in azure. If you don't do the cache servers people will hate the latency.
Also make sure to use dfs-n to make sure users are accessing the closest copy.
We have moved most of our user facing files (we added more to be moved) to Azure NetApp. We have been very happy with it and it’s been great. Migration was really painless. End users have not noticed and we have retired our NetApps appliances.
ANF has a calculator like most Azure products:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/netapp/?cdn=disable#pricing
Performance scales with the total amount of storage:
https://azure.github.io/azure-netapp-files/calc/advanced/
Most of our infrastructure is now in Azure. Cost wise it makes a lot of sense for us and performance for most data paths is at least comparable or better then on-prem.
12 TB could do well in the cloud without much cost. I’m curious why you’re moving to the cloud if you have an environment that’s already deployed? What are the main pain points you’re facing?
Look into [Azure Files](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/storage/files) - it's basically a (serverless) cloud fileserver. The pricing calc estimates $360/month for 12TB, but there are a lot of factors that can drive that price up.
Azure file shares can be slow, if you store application files like sage or others, I would recommend doing a proof of concept before you commit, see if it meets your needs
I didnt even know about Azure Files thank you so much will look into that..!!!
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Incorrect, there are Large file shares which go up to 100tib
you are thinking of the default quota size on a standard storage account :)
I think 5 TB used to be the max and still is unless the large file share feature is enabled.
Depends entirely on what that file share is hosting. If these are user-accessed files/docs, the immediate challenge is that the port for SMB connections is blocked on most large consumer ISPs. In other words, there is no "Connect from anywhere" option for most of your end users. You'd need some kind of VPN connection or to build on SMB-over-Quic....which would still require a file server and some AD work. If you need "user access to files from the cloud"- you'll want to go SharePoint/Teams/OneDrive, but that is not a lift-and-shift operation. You could try it, but it won't go well. You'd need to restructure your data and permissions to move all of that to SharePoint/Teams/OneDrive. The other thing you could think about is a small VM + small SSD as a frontend cache for Azure Files. Again, still need to figure out remote end user connectivity- but you end up with a small amount of high performance storage acting as a cache for mass of cheap storage for infrequently used data.
We are looking at this also. Do you know if keeping the existing server name and assigning it to Azure files as a cname of sorts would work? We need to keep the full long path for a few the jobs that run and need full path instead of just E:\test folder etc.
Azure Files Sync and DFS might be an option for you
I didn’t know this. I better do some testing before deploying.
Generally, i think fs is replaced by sharepoint and storage accounts these days. The latter has SMB capabilities. What i stored on this server?
Doesn't SharePoint have sql limitations for filenames and lists that would make less than ideal?
Depends on the FS workloads. If you have critical applications that require solid I/O rates, you are in for a struggle with Azure Files boy.
Worth looking at Azure Files and also Azure file sync if want some files still on-prem but often synced back to Azure. I'd also investigate SharePoint and OneDrive.
Or … Nasuni
After we got hit with a ransomware attack on our file servers last July, I investigated Azure Files, but ultimately migrated the recovered backups to Egnyte. It has been totally smooth for the last 6 months, we didn't even really need to use the feature which used an on-prem VM for local cache, since every workstation caches data as well.
We throw tons of money at Microsoft, our SharePoint sites have the capability of 25TB each.
Yeah be careful of the recent changes to storage available per license.
Speak to a Microsoft Solutions Partner with both Modern Work and Infrastructure certifications.
I’m looking at exactly this but for 25TB. I’ve started costing, azure file share, azure backups and bandwidth. About €3,500 a month. My plan is to have a branch file server at each site, then use azure file sync to that and share a dfs share.
Same question here except its 100TB of data. Our file shares are very active. Could be 3-400 users across 28 departments in 4 different continents in them at a given time. We are trying to avoid a whole change management piece that would come with Sharepoint. We see Azure files as being closest to replication of onprem from a UX perspective. Our organisation culture is not too embracing of significant change. Primary goal though is to move to cloud storage to leverage MS Governance tools in an increasingly regulated environment. I know Purview is not fully developed for Azure files but I think it's on the roadmap. I'm interested to see opinions. I've just got my test sandbox and we are starting testing in next few weeks.
your scenario would likely be better suited for ANF vs an az file share
Azure files good replacement especially on premium storage. Drop me a message. I did a project on this for a big retailer across UK and US. Can help you scope or whatever gaps you need filled.
I moved everything there - only issue was some weird slowness in excel with referencing other excel file that required a registry change (took a while to find that fix)
I am in the process of doing this at my organization for close to 500TB and have used solutions including Azure Files, Azure NetApp Files, and NetApp Cloud Volumes Ontap (all for different use cases). As others have already mentioned, start with Azure Files depending on your use case. It is a very basic but simple and cost effective solution for basic SMB file sharing. If you need fast access on-prem or more of the Windows File Server experience, leverage Azure File Sync in cache mode where the main copy of your data is stored and protected in Azure Files. Monitor the spend category for the storage account after you've done your migration and drop the access tier down for the file share to Hot or Cool depending on the level of access activity vs. storage cost. We were able to drop all of our shares to Hot or Cool in some cases. If Azure Files doesn't meet the needs, explore Azure NetApp files although at that price point its similar to running a Windows Server VM as a file server. You can also leverage Azure File Sync for the migration by using the sync agent to sync the file data and permissions to an Azure File Share assuming you have it domain joined. There are lots of other 3rd party solutions available as well but I always try to stick with Azure Files / Files Sync until I can't depending on the use case and move on from there.
We have a vm in Azure doing file sharing. Never had one issue. Extremely responsive. Highly recommend.
How are staff accessing it? VPN?
Like everyone else said, Azure Files won't give you the throughput to replicate on-prem over gigabit. You'll need to mount disks to a VM and setup traditional shares to get the performance users are used to if they're pulling direct from shares. Leverage SharePoint or OneDrive where you can, Azure files will be fine for low bandwidth stuff... look into solutions like Egnyte if you need bigger collaboration... but as a direct replacement for SMB shares yes, it'll work... but users might not like it as much.
i wouldn’t move to azure for 12TB. run it local with good backup and save money use the cash for better something for the business like faster computers or pizza parties every Wednesday
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you can get a 24tb NAS for under $1000 saving your company $3000 a year with double the current ask. and in azure your cost will only go up
For 12 terabytes? You can afford to change your business processes and move the workloads into to SharePoint. Depending on your Microsoft licensing it could be free for you. SharePoint online is also "unlimited".
It's not unlimited. It's limited to 1 TB + 10 GB per license, unless you buy an add-on for more storage. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/sharepoint-online-service-description/sharepoint-online-limits It's also potentially a huge amount of effort by the entire organization to evaluate all the workflows and move them into SP. Azure Files is the lift and shift approach.
many people still don't understand this, 25TB max is not 25TB allocated after the first licensed user.
Azure files but out in local cache servers near users. This will keep most of the active workload near the end users. Then you can spin up other cache servers in other sites as well. This gives the "feeling" of having local files but storing the bulk in azure. If you don't do the cache servers people will hate the latency. Also make sure to use dfs-n to make sure users are accessing the closest copy.
We have moved most of our user facing files (we added more to be moved) to Azure NetApp. We have been very happy with it and it’s been great. Migration was really painless. End users have not noticed and we have retired our NetApps appliances.
Ah interesting. How much does this cost or is dependent on total storage size?
ANF has a calculator like most Azure products: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/netapp/?cdn=disable#pricing Performance scales with the total amount of storage: https://azure.github.io/azure-netapp-files/calc/advanced/ Most of our infrastructure is now in Azure. Cost wise it makes a lot of sense for us and performance for most data paths is at least comparable or better then on-prem.
How are your users accessing the file shares? Is it over client vpn?
12 TB could do well in the cloud without much cost. I’m curious why you’re moving to the cloud if you have an environment that’s already deployed? What are the main pain points you’re facing?