Transfer Data from a managed disk to an azure file share

Question

Hello Team,

we have a migration scenario where we want to check with you if there is a more efficient - ideally Azure native - solution.

The Use Case:

We are currently working with a VM that we use as an NFS Server, utilizing a P70 Disk.

As we want to get rid of this unmanaged solution we are changing to Azure File Shares (Premium, LRS).

The problem:

We now have to transfer the content of the Disk (16 TB) to various File Shares. The system is in productive use - therefore any downtime should be minimal and anything greater than 8 hours is not viable.

We are dealing with vast amounts of small files (a few kb each), but a reasonable amount per folder.

Our Solution:

After searching quite a bit we didn't find any native solution that would allow us to expand the content of a disk into a storage account.

As such we are going with a generic solution to make an initial copy with RClone. At the time of the swap, we would turn of the production system and merge the final delta with a final rclone. (rclone seems preferable to rsync).

The question:

Is there a mechanism within azure that would allow us to expand the content of a managed disk (the file structure) into a Azure File share in a performant way without relying on copy/rsync/rclone etc?

Answer 1

@suresh Reddy Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum, Thank you for posting your query here!

Azure does not have a native mechanism to directly expand the content of a managed disk (file structure) into an Azure File Share in a performant way without relying on copy/transfer tools like RClone, rsync, or AzCopy. So, your current approach of using RClone to migrate the data seems reasonable given the constraints of your scenario.

Azure File Shares are designed for SMB file sharing and are more suited for sharing files among different machines and applications rather than directly expanding the content of a managed disk.

I would recommend to leave your feedback here. All the feedback you share in these forums will be monitored and reviewed by the Microsoft engineering teams responsible for building Azure.

Possible option: I haven't tried the below mentioned steps in lab, I would recommend to try the below mentioned steps using Azure File Sync and let me know the status.

To use Azure File Sync to synchronize the contents of a managed disk to an Azure file share, you can follow these steps:

Create an Azure file share that will be used to store the contents of the managed disk.

1. Install the Azure File Sync agent on the virtual machine that has the managed disk attached.
2. Create a sync group in Azure File Sync that includes the managed disk and the Azure file share.

Configure the sync group to synchronize the contents of the managed disk to the Azure file share.

Once the sync group is configured, Azure File Sync will automatically synchronize the contents of the managed disk to the Azure file share. This can be a performant way to expand the content of a managed disk into an Azure file share, as it allows you to synchronize only the changes that have been made to the managed disk.

It's worth noting that Azure File Sync is designed to work with file shares, so it may not be the best solution if you need to synchronize block-level changes or if you need to synchronize large amounts of data. In those cases, you may need to use a different solution, such as Azure Data Factory or Azure Storage Explorer.

Please let us know if you have any further queries**. I’m happy to assist you further.**

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Answer 2

Thank you for value feedback and you may close this topic.