Azure Files (SMB and NFS Shares)

Azure Files provides fully managed file shares in the cloud that are accessible via the industry-standard Server Message Block (SMB) and Network File System (NFS) protocols. This lesson covers how Azure Files works, when to use it, performance tiers, authentication, and how to mount file shares on different operating systems.

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What Is Azure Files?

Azure Files is a managed file share service that allows you to create file shares in the cloud and mount them from Windows, Linux, and macOS — just like mounting a network drive on premises. It eliminates the need to manage file server infrastructure.

Key Benefits

• Fully managed — no file server VMs to maintain, patch, or scale
• Shared access — multiple clients can mount the same share concurrently
• Cross-platform — supports SMB (Windows, Linux, macOS) and NFS (Linux)
• Familiar protocols — use existing tools and applications without modification
• Cloud integration — accessible via Azure Portal, CLI, REST API, and SDKs
• Snapshots — point-in-time read-only copies of the entire share

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SMB vs NFS

Azure Files supports two protocols for mounting file shares: