How to create an SMB Azure file share

To create a storage account via the Azure portal, select + Create a resource from the dashboard. In the resulting Azure Marketplace search window, search for storage account and select the resulting search result. This will lead to an overview page for storage accounts; select Create to proceed with the storage account creation wizard.

Basics

The first section to complete to create a storage account is labeled Basics. This contains all of the required fields to create a storage account. To create a GPv2 storage account, ensure the Performance radio button is set to Standard and the Account kind drop-down list is selected to StorageV2 (general purpose v2).

To create a FileStorage storage account, ensure the Performance radio button is set to Premium and Fileshares is selected in the Premium account type drop-down list.

The other basics fields are independent from the choice of storage account:

• Storage account name: The name of the storage account resource to be created. This name must be globally unique. The storage account name will be used as the server name when you mount an Azure file share via SMB. Storage account names must be between 3 and 24 characters in length. They may contain numbers and lowercase letters only.
• Location: The region for the storage account to be deployed into. This can be the region associated with the resource group, or any other available region.
• Replication: Although this is labeled replication, this field actually means redundancy; this is the desired redundancy level: locally redundancy (LRS), zone redundancy (ZRS), geo-redundancy (GRS), and geo-zone-redundancy (GZRS). This drop-down list also contains read-access geo-redundancy (RA-GRS) and read-access geo-zone redundancy (RA-GZRS), which don't apply to Azure file shares; any file share created in a storage account with these selected will be either geo-redundant or geo-zone-redundant, respectively.

Networking

The networking section allows you to configure networking options. These settings are optional for the creation of the storage account and can be configured later if desired. For more information on these options, see Azure Files networking considerations.

Data protection

The data protection section allows you to configure the soft-delete policy for Azure file shares in your storage account. Other settings related to soft-delete for blobs, containers, point-in-time restore for containers, versioning, and change feed apply only to Azure Blob storage.

Advanced

The advanced section contains several important settings for Azure file shares:

• Secure transfer required: This field indicates whether the storage account requires encryption in transit for communication to the storage account. If you require SMB 2.1 support, you must disable this.

• Enable storage account key access: When storage account key access is disabled, any requests to the account that are authorized with the storage account key will be denied. You might wish to disable storage account key access if you plan to use identity-based authentication to grant access to the share. However keep in mind that full administrative control of a file share, including the ability to take ownership of a file, requires using the storage account key.

• Large file shares: Provides file share support up to a maximum of 100 TiB. Large file shares are now enabled by default on all storage accounts and can't be disabled. All Azure file shares can now span up to 100 TiB, so this setting is displayed for legacy reasons only and appears grayed out in the Azure portal.

The other settings that are available in the advanced tab (hierarchical namespace for Azure Data Lake storage gen 2, default blob tier, NFSv3 for blob storage, etc.) don't apply to Azure Files.

Tags

Tags are name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources and view consolidated billing by applying the same tag to multiple resources and resource groups. These are optional and can be applied after storage account creation.

Review + create

The final step to create the storage account is to select the Create button on the Review + create tab. This button won't be available unless all the required fields for a storage account are filled.

To create a storage account using PowerShell, use the New-AzStorageAccount cmdlet. This cmdlet has many options; only the required options are shown. To learn more about advanced options, see the New-AzStorageAccount cmdlet documentation.

To simplify creating the storage account and subsequent file share, we'll store several parameters in variables. You may replace the variable contents with whatever values you wish; however, note that the storage account name must be globally unique.

$resourceGroupName = "myResourceGroup"
$storageAccountName = "mystorageacct$(Get-Random)"
$region = "chinanorth3"

To create a storage account capable of storing standard Azure file shares, use the following command. The -SkuName parameter relates to the type of redundancy desired.

$storAcct = New-AzStorageAccount `
    -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
    -Name $storageAccountName `
    -SkuName Standard_LRS `
    -Location $region `
    -Kind StorageV2

To create a storage account capable of storing premium Azure file shares, use the following command. Note that the -SkuName parameter has changed to include both Premium and the desired redundancy level of locally redundant storage (LRS). The -Kind parameter is FileStorage instead of StorageV2 because premium file shares must be created in a FileStorage storage account instead of a GPv2 storage account.

$storAcct = New-AzStorageAccount `
    -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
    -Name $storageAccountName `
    -SkuName Premium_LRS `
    -Location $region `
    -Kind FileStorage 

To create a storage account using Azure CLI, use the az storage account create command. This command has many options; only the required options are shown. To learn more about the advanced options, see the az storage account create command documentation.

To simplify the creation of the storage account and subsequent file share, we'll store several parameters in variables. You may replace the variable contents with whatever values you wish, however note that the storage account name must be globally unique.

resourceGroupName="myResourceGroup"
storageAccountName="mystorageacct$RANDOM"
region="chinanorth3"

To create a storage account capable of storing standard Azure file shares, use the following command. The --sku parameter relates to the type of redundancy desired.

az storage account create \
    --resource-group $resourceGroupName \
    --name $storageAccountName \
    --kind StorageV2 \
    --sku Standard_ZRS \
    --output none

To create a storage account capable of storing premium Azure file shares, use the following command. Note that the --sku parameter has changed to include both Premium and the desired redundancy level of locally redundant storage (LRS). The --kind parameter is FileStorage instead of StorageV2 because premium file shares must be created in a FileStorage storage account instead of a GPv2 storage account.

az storage account create \
    --resource-group $resourceGroupName \
    --name $storageAccountName \
    --kind FileStorage \
    --sku Premium_LRS \
    --output none

Follow these instructions to create a new Azure file share using the Azure portal.

1. If you just created your storage account, you can navigate to it from the deployment screen by selecting Go to resource. Once in the storage account, select the File shares in the table of contents for the storage account.

2. In the file share listing, you should see any file shares you have previously created in this storage account; an empty table if no file shares have been created yet. Select + File share to create a new file share.

3. The new file share blade should appear on the screen. Complete the fields in the Basic tab of the new file share blade to create a file share:

   • Name: The name of the file share to be created.

   • Tier: The selected tier for a standard file share. This field is only available in a general purpose (GPv2) storage account type. You can choose transaction optimized, hot, or cool. You can change the share's tier at any time. We recommend picking the Transaction optimized tier possible during a migration, to minimize transaction expenses, and then switching to a lower tier if desired after the migration is complete.

   • Provisioned capacity: For premium file shares only, the provisioned capacity is the amount that you'll be billed for regardless of actual usage. This field is only available in a FileStorage storage account type. The IOPS and throughput available on a premium file share are based on the provisioned capacity, so you can provision more capacity to get more performance. The minimum size for a premium file share is 100 GiB. For more information on how to plan for a premium file share, see provisioning premium file shares.

4. Select Review + create and then Create to create the Azure file share.

You can create an Azure file share with the New-AzRmStorageShare cmdlet. The following PowerShell commands assume you've set the variables $resourceGroupName and $storageAccountName as defined above in the creating a storage account with Azure PowerShell section.

The following example shows creating a file share with an explicit tier using the -AccessTier parameter. If a tier isn't specified, the default tier for standard file shares is transaction optimized.

# Assuming $resourceGroupName and $storageAccountName from earlier in this document have already
# been populated. The access tier parameter may be TransactionOptimized, Hot, or Cool for GPv2 
# storage accounts. Standard tiers are only available in standard storage accounts. 
$shareName = "myshare"

New-AzRmStorageShare `
        -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
        -StorageAccountName $storageAccountName `
        -Name $shareName `
        -AccessTier TransactionOptimized `
        -QuotaGiB 1024 | `
    Out-Null

You can create an Azure file share with the az storage share-rm create command. The following Azure CLI commands assume you've set the variables $resourceGroupName and $storageAccountName as defined above in the creating a storage account with Azure CLI section.

shareName="myshare"

az storage share-rm create \
    --resource-group $resourceGroupName \
    --storage-account $storageAccountName \
    --name $shareName \
    --access-tier "TransactionOptimized" \
    --quota 1024 \
    --output none

On the main storage account page, select File shares, and select the tile labeled File shares (you can also navigate to File shares via the table of contents for the storage account).

In the table list of file shares, select the file share for which you would like to change the tier. On the file share overview page, select Change tier from the menu.

On the resulting dialog, select the desired tier: transaction optimized, hot, or cool.

The following PowerShell cmdlet assumes that you've set the $resourceGroupName, $storageAccountName, $shareName variables as described in the earlier sections of this document.

Update-AzRmStorageShare `
    -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
    -StorageAccountName $storageAccountName `
    -Name $shareName `
    -AccessTier Cool

The following Azure CLI command assumes that you've set the $resourceGroupName, $storageAccountName, and $shareName variables as described in the earlier sections of this document.

az storage share-rm update \
    --resource-group $resourceGroupName \
    --storage-account $storageAccountName \
    --name $shareName \
    --access-tier "Cool"

1. From your storage account, select File shares.
2. Right-click your file share, and then select Quota.
3. Enter the new size that you want, and then select OK.

To set the quota to the maximum size, use the following command. Replace <YourResourceGroupName>, <YourStorageAccountName>, and <YourStorageAccountFileShareName> with your information.

$resourceGroupName = "<YourResourceGroupName>"
$storageAccountName = "<YourStorageAccountName>"
$shareName="<YourStorageAccountFileShareName>"

# update quota
Update-AzRmStorageShare `
    -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName `
    -StorageAccountName $storageAccountName `
    -Name $shareName `
    -QuotaGiB 102400

To set the quota to the maximum size, use the following command. Replace <yourResourceGroupName>, <yourStorageAccountName>, and <yourFileShareName> with your information.

az storage share-rm update \
    --resource-group <yourResourceGroupName> \
    --storage-account <yourStorageAccountName> \
    --name <yourFileShareName> \
    --quota 102400

1. Open the Azure portal, and navigate to the storage account that contains the file share you want to delete.
2. Open the storage account and select File shares.
3. Select the file share you want to delete.
4. Select Delete share.
5. Check the box confirming that you agree to the deletion of the file share and all its content.
6. Select Delete.

1. Run the following script. Replace <ResourceGroup>, <StorageAccount>, and <FileShare> with your information.

    Remove-AzRmStorageShare `
            -ResourceGroupName <ResourceGroup> `
            -StorageAccountName <StorageAccount> `
            -Name <FileShare>
   

You can delete an Azure file share with the az storage share delete command. Replace <ResourceGroup>, <StorageAccount>, and <FileShare> with your information.

az storage share-rm delete \
    --resource-group <ResourceGroup> \
    --storage-account <StorageAccount> \
    --name <FileShare>