Azure files premium

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When it comes to Azure Files Premium, the performance in terms of IOPS and throughput is not affected by the size of the share. Instead, the performance is determined by the provisioned capacity and the number of clients accessing the share.

Azure Files Premium allows you to provision a certain amount of capacity (in terms of GiB) and IOPS for your file share. The provisioned IOPS determine the maximum number of IOPS that can be sustained by the share, while the provisioned capacity determines the maximum amount of data that can be stored in the share.

The number of clients accessing the share can also affect the performance, as each client will consume a certain amount of IOPS and throughput. However, this is not related to the size of the share.

In general, it is recommended to use a single large share instead of multiple smaller shares, as this can simplify management and reduce costs. However, if you have specific requirements for access control or data isolation, you may need to use multiple shares.

Azure Files Premium offers a provisioning model that guarantees a certain performance profile based on the size of the file share. In this model, larger shares have higher baseline IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) and throughput limits compared to smaller shares. Therefore, if you are looking for better performance in terms of IOPS and throughput, a larger share would be more beneficial than several smaller shares.

• This blog provides detailed information on your scenario : https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/premium-files-redefines-limits-for-azure-files/
• Azure Files Premium performs better in terms of IOPS and throughput with larger shares rather than several smaller shares. The premium file shares offer a provisioning model that guarantees a certain performance profile based on the size of the share. As the share size increases, so do the baseline IOPS and throughput limits. For instance, a premium file share with a capacity of 102,400 GiB has a baseline IOPS of 100,000 and a throughput of 10,340 MiB/s, whereas a share with a capacity of 100 GiB has a baseline IOPS of 3,100 and a throughput of 110 MiB/s. Therefore, if your workload requires high IOPS and throughput, it is advisable to use a larger premium file share rather than multiple smaller ones.

For more detailed information, you can refer to the Azure documentation on Understanding Azure Files performance, particularly the sections on "Choosing a performance tier based on usage patterns" and the "Provisioned model".

Additional information: To monitor the performance of your Azure Files Premium share, you can utilize Azure Monitor, which provides metrics for Azure File Sync. These metrics are enabled by default and are sent to Azure Monitor every 15 minutes. To access these metrics:

Go to your Storage Sync Service in the Azure portal.

Click on the "Metrics" option.

Select the metric you wish to view. Available metrics include:

• Bytes synced
• Cloud tiering cache hit rate
• Cloud tiering recall size
• Cloud tiering recall success rate
• Cloud tiering recall throughput
• Cloud tiering size of data tiered

For a more detailed analysis of Azure Files metrics using Azure Monitor, you can refer to the Azure documentation on Analyze Azure Files metrics using Azure Monitor. Additionally, for monitoring Azure File Sync specifically, you can check out the Monitor Azure File Sync documentation.

Requests are throttled when the I/O operations per second (IOPS), ingress, or egress limits for a file share are reached. For example, if the client exceeds baseline IOPS, it will get throttled by the Azure Files service. Throttling can result in the client experiencing poor performance.

To understand the limits for standard and premium file shares, see File share and file scale targets. Depending on your workload, throttling can often be avoided by moving from standard to premium Azure file shares.

To learn more about how throttling at the share level or storage account level can cause high latency, low throughput, and general performance issues, see Share or storage account is being throttled.

In summary, whether it's better to have a large share or several smaller shares in Azure Files Premium depends on factors such as workload requirements, performance isolation needs, management preferences, and cost considerations. Evaluate these factors carefully to determine the optimal configuration for your specific use case.

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