Azure Files Vs Disks

Description	Azure Blobs	Azure File
Relationship with Azure VMs	Required for booting (OS Disk)	LR , GRS
Scope	Exclusive/ Isolated to a single VM	Shared across multiple VMs
Snapshots and Copy	Yes	No
Configuration	Configured via portal/ management APIs and available at boot time	Connect after boot (via net use on windows)
Built in authentication	Built in authentication	Set up authentication on net use
Cleanup	Resources can be cleaned up with VM if needed	Manually via standard file APIs or REST APIs
Access via REST	Can only access as fixed formatted VHD (single blob) via REST. Files stored in VHD cannot be accessed via REST	Individual files stored in share are accessible via REST
Max size	1 TB	5 TB File Share 1 TB File within Share
Max 8kb IOps	500 IOps	1000 IOps

• Locally redundant storage (LRS) maintains three copies of your data. LRS is replicated three times within a single facility in a single region. LRS protects your data from normal hardware failures, but not from the failure of a single facility. LRS is offered at a discount.


• Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) maintains three copies of your data. ZRS is replicated three times across two to three facilities, either within a single region or across two regions, providing higher durability than LRS. ZRS ensures that your data is durable within a single region. ZRS provides a higher level of durability than LRS. ZRS is currently available only for blobs. Once you have created your storage account and selected zone redundant replication, you cannot convert it to use to any other type of replication or vice versa.


• Geo-redundant storage (GRS) is enabled for your storage account by default when you create it. GRS maintains six copies of your data. With GRS, your data is replicated three times within the primary region, and is also replicated three times in a secondary region hundreds of miles away from the primary region, providing the highest level of durability. In the event of a failure at the primary region, Azure Storage will failover to the secondary region. GRS ensures that your data is durable in two separate regions.


• Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) provides all of the benefits of geo-redundant storage noted above, and also allows read access to data at the secondary region in the event that the primary region becomes unavailable. Read-access geo-redundant storage is recommended for maximum availability in addition to durability.