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Opening a Excel file in Azure File Shares takes a long time

Alberto Mijares (Tantius) 81 Reputation points
2023-09-27T12:56:45.85+00:00

Opening a 16 Mb excel file and a 100 Mb powerpoint stored in Azure File Shares takes several minutes to open from a on-site machines. Copying the file via PowerShell is accomplished in less than 10 seconds. Opening the file if stored locally or in the NAS is also almost immediate.
This is reproducible.

The VPN connection to VirtualGateway is stable, the network errors are minimum. There is no Azure File share throttling.
E2E latency reaches almost 4 seconds and is OK.

Azure Files
Azure Files
An Azure service that offers file shares in the cloud.
1,187 questions
Azure Storage Accounts
Azure Storage Accounts
Globally unique resources that provide access to data management services and serve as the parent namespace for the services.
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  1. Alberto Mijares (Tantius) 81 Reputation points
    2023-11-19T13:37:19.0166667+00:00

    I just got a reply form Microsoft confirming that Azure FIles in not recommended for handling large (19 Mb) as a mapped drive. It takes more 2:30 minutes to open a file with ample bandwith and no Storage account throttling. Robocopy takes less than 10 seconds.

    Microsoft support mentioning that Office is not multithread when opening files.

    Their only recommendation was usng file sync which is not what we were looking for since we wanted to minimize on-site hardware requirements

  2. Sumarigo-MSFT 44,096 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2023-11-24T05:55:04.5733333+00:00

    @Alberto Mijares (Tantius) I'm glad that you were able to resolve your issue and thank you for posting your solution so that others experiencing the same thing can easily reference this! Since the Microsoft Q&A community has a policy that "The question author cannot accept their own answer. They can only accept answers by others ", I'll repost your solution in case you'd like to "Accept " the answer.

    Issue Type : Performance (Opening a Excel file in Azure File Shares takes a long time)
    Opening a 16 MB Excel file and a 100 MB PowerPoint file from Azure File Shares on on-site machines takes several minutes, while copying the files via PowerShell completes in less than 10 seconds. Opening the files locally or from a NAS is nearly immediate.

    Solution: Azure Files is not recommended for managing large files (19 MB) as a mapped drive. It takes over 2 minutes and 30 seconds to open a file despite having sufficient bandwidth and no Storage account throttling. In contrast, Robocopy takes less than 10 seconds. Microsoft support mentioned that Office is not multithreaded when opening files. Their sole recommendation was to use file sync, which is not aligned with our goal of minimizing on-site hardware requirements.

    Please remember to "Accept Answer" if any answer/reply helped, so that others in the community facing similar issues can easily find the solution.

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