Azure File Shre performance tiers

Question

Hello guys,

I've read a lot of documentation regarding Azure Files but I've a question about the performance, overall on difference between tiers.

I did not found any official article that explain the performance (IOPS and throughput) for TRANSACTION OPTIMIZED, HOT and COOL tiers.

Someone have these information?

thanks!

Andrew

Answer 1

They all operate on the same HDD-backed infrastructure within General Purpose v2 (GPv2) storage accounts. Therefore, their performance capabilities are fundamentally similar, with differences primarily in pricing structures.

Performance Characteristics Across Tiers

Tier	Storage Type	Data at-Rest Cost	Transaction Cost	Ideal Use Case
Transaction Optimized	HDD	High	Low	High transaction workloads (e.g., migrations, backups)
Hot	HDD	Medium	Medium	General-purpose workloads with moderate activity
Cool	HDD	Low	High	Infrequently accessed data with minimal transactions

All three tiers share the same underlying hardware, so their performance in terms of IOPS and throughput is comparable. The choice among them should be based on your workload's access patterns and cost considerations.

Performance Limits for Standard File Shares

For standard (HDD-backed) file shares, the performance limits are as follows:

• Maximum IOPS per share: Up to 20,000 IOPS
• Maximum throughput per share: Up to 300 MiB/s
• Maximum IOPS per storage account: Up to 20,000 IOPS
• Maximum throughput per storage account: Ingress up to 3,200 MiB/s; Egress up to 6,400 MiB/s

These limits are consistent across the Transaction Optimized, Hot, and Cool tiers, as they all utilize the same HDD-based infrastructure.

Recommendations

• Transaction Optimized Tier: Best suited for workloads with high transaction volumes, such as data migrations or backup operations, due to its lower transaction costs.
• Hot Tier: Ideal for general-purpose file shares with moderate access patterns.
• Cool Tier: Most cost-effective for storing infrequently accessed data, where the higher transaction costs are offset by lower storage costs.

It's important to monitor your workload's access patterns and adjust the tier accordingly to optimize costs. You can change the access tier of a file share at any time to better align with your usage patterns.

If you require higher performance than what's offered by standard tiers, consider using Premium Azure File Shares, which are SSD-backed and provide higher IOPS and throughput capabilities.

For more info, refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/understanding-billing "Understand Azure Files billing | Microsoft Learn", https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-files-scale-targets "Azure Files scalability and performance targets | Microsoft Learn", https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/azure-storage/files/performance/files-troubleshoot-performance "Azure Files performance troubleshooting guide - Azure | Microsoft Learn", https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azurearchitectureblog/enterprise-file-shares-on-azure/1775399 "Enterprise File Shares on Azure | Microsoft Community Hub", and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/well-architected/service-guides/azure-files "Architecture Best Practices for Azure Files - Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework | Microsoft Learn"

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hth

Marcin