Microsoft Azure – Map a Network File Share to Azure Windows VM

In this article, we will see or learn to connect an azure storage account file share to an azure windows server or azure Windows VM using a network share. Azure File share is used to store the data or it can be used to share data from the azure server to the storage account or vice versa.

The advantage of using is file share is secure and data sharing is super fast. File share can be used as a backup for collecting the data and also be used for archiving the data. Azure File share maximum file share capacity is 5TB. 

Let’s see how we can implement this scenario using the below implementation steps in azure.

Implementation:

Follow the below steps to map a network file share to Azure Windows VM:

Step 1: Log in to Azure Portal.

Step 2: Access storage accounts from Azure Global Search.

Step 3: Select your required storage account in which your file share is present. Open storage account and access the files hare. 

Step 4: From file share select your file share that which you wanted to connect. Here, we will be using the existing file share with the testing. We will be using this to connect. If you don’t one then click on  + File share to create a new file share.

Step 5: After selecting the select file share >> Click on Connect

Step 6: After clicking on connect, from here we should gather all the required info here to map the file to Azure VM. Let’s save these for further login. To connect to this Azure file share from Windows, We require the following for authentication. 

• Drive Letter
• Connection Server
• File share Username 
• File share Passcode

• First, select the OS authentication method >> Windows.

• Select the drive letter that you prefer from dropdown.

• Choose Authentication method >> storage account key.

• Get Username, Passcode and Connection Server from script.

Mapping a File share to Azure Server:

Follow the below steps to map a file share to the Azure server:

Step 1: Login to your Azure Server.

Step 2: Open the file explorer and right on the Network and select Map network drive.

Step 3: Now, specify the drive letter for the connection and the folder that you want to connect >> Select connect using different credentials and click on Finish.

• Here the folder name should be the connection server. 

Step 4: Now, enter the username and password  which we have collected in the above steps >> click on Ok to Authenticate. 

Note: The 445 Port should be allowed on the Azure Server to Connect.

That’s it! Now you can we the File share on your Azure VM to store and to share data.