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From on-premises DFS, can I include a share from the new Azure File Storage?

Dave
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2 Answers2

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The answer at the moment seems to be: no, but there's a workaround that may suit some people.

Pointing directly to an Azure Files location using DFS does not work. The connection string you need contains its key and there's no way I have found of getting DFS to pass this, nor to share out an Azure share mounted on a file server as a drive.

The workaround is that if you still have a local (2012R2 or 2016) server, you install the Azure File Sync client and point your DFS to this. Not much different from just having a local file server, except that you can now take advantage of allowing some lesser-used files to stay offline and only download to the local server when needed.

If you're moving to Azure to combat continually running out of space on your file server, rather than trying to remove the server entirely, this could be all you need. I'm also trying to deal with how to archive all the old data and this could potentially solve both problems into one solution.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-sync-files-planning#distributed-file-system-dfs

I've been using these instructions to get it installed. After creating the Azure Files space you install the client on the server, register it, and let it sync.

Dev Lunsford
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You can mount file share created by Azure File Storage directly from your on-premises client (as long as it supports SMB 3.0 and has port 445 outbound open), but you can't include a file share created by Azure File Storage with your on-premise DFS.

Please refer to links below for more details on how to use Azure File Storage

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/videos/azurecon-2015-azure-files-storage-a-frictionless-cloud-smb-file-system-for-windows-and-linux/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-files/

https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Windows-Azure/Azure-File-Storage-with-Windows

  • Jason
Jason Tang - MSFT
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  • Thx Jason. Does/did it actually state anywhere that the Azure storage is not usable by DFS. – Dave Jan 07 '16 at 12:46
  • @Jason is there currently any offline support for an Azure file share mapped to a Windows client? I.e. if the internet connection drops, is there any way to cache and access the files usually provided by the file share? – GFoley83 Nov 29 '18 at 19:46