Azure File Sync for DR

CS10NET 86 Reputation points
2021-11-18T15:46:37.817+00:00

We have a situation where we're using Azure File Sync to sync data from on-prem to an Azure File share. Then in a DR scenario we expected to add a server in Azure (ad-hoc), register that server with the sync service, add to the sync groups, download namespace only. However, with very large share with millions of files we're seeing this is not a viable solution and this takes very long time for the namespace/metadata to even be available.

Our thought now is that we can stand up a server to be online all the time and joined to the sync group and only download the namespace/metadata. We're trying to avoid high costs so if we use an unmanaged standard page blob VHD (stored in storage account), will this see the data as 0KB (no cost) or will it see the space that it would use assuming all data was pushed down to server?

Azure Files
Azure Files
An Azure service that offers file shares in the cloud.
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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. Alan Kinane 16,926 Reputation points MVP
    2021-11-18T17:07:44.72+00:00

    With unmanaged disks (page blobs) you only pay for what you use not for the provisioned size, so for the metadata it wouldn't quite be 0KB but it should be very low. You will still have storage transaction charges on top of this.

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  1. CS10NET 86 Reputation points
    2021-11-18T17:18:13.64+00:00

    Thank you. What about if we were to use managed disk but make it a smaller disk (ex. 256GB) but the actual data size would be 20TB. Could a 256GB data disk hold the metadata if the total size "could be" 20TB? then obviously if this went into production we could increase the size of that disk once data is accessed/hydrated.


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