Can we mount same Azure data disk on multiple VM's which are hosted in same region

Question

Hi Team,

We want to mount same disks on multiple VMs which are hosted in same region.

Our plan is to mount a Premium disk of 256GB to be mounted on 15 VM's and use it like a network share. Please suggest the options. As Fileshare is prohibited in our environment with port 445 being disabled.

Answer 1

Hi,

If the disk is an Azure shared disk you can accomplish this, this feature is still in preview though.

Azure shared disks (preview) is a new feature for Azure managed disks that enable attaching a managed disk to multiple virtual machines (VMs) simultaneously.

More information here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/disks-shared

If it’s a normal data disk you cannot do this, but you might want to also take a look at Azure Files:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-files-introduction

Best regards,
Leon

Answer 2

@v-girip Just checking in to see if the above answer helped. If this answers your question, please don’t forget to "Accept the answer" and Up-Vote. This could be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. If you do have further questions or issues please let us know.

Adding additional info to @deherman-MSFT answer: While connecting from on-prem, sometimes ISPs block port 445.Azure VPN Gateway connects your on-premises networks to Azure through Point-to-Site VPNs in a similar way that you set up and connect to a remote branch office. The connectivity is secure and uses the industry-standard protocols KIEv2.
For more information, refer to this GitHub article: https://github.com/Azure-Samples/azure-files-samples/tree/master/point-to-site-vpn-azure-files

Prerequisite: You can also check the OS Versions support accessing file share in different environment. Windows, Linux and macOS

Can you mount that drive from a VM in Azure, just to make sure it's not a problem with the file share? In fact, I'd try it from a VM in a different region if you can, which will confirm that SMB 3.0 is working correctly.

Troubleshooter for Azure Files storage problems

Kindly let us know if the above helps or you need further assistance on this issue.

If there is any issue can you share the screen shot of the error message

Answer 3

@v-girip Unfortunately Azure Files uses SMB protocol which requires port 445 to operate. There are some possible workarounds and an alternative presented in this thread.

Please let us know if this helps or if you have further questions!

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Please don’t forget to "Accept the answer” and “up-vote” wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.

Answer 4

Hello everyone,

I might have a small follow-up question here. Say I've attached & mounted a premium SSD data disk to 2 vms (which are in the same domain, where 1 of those machines is the domain controller). The problem is, though, adding files on one machine is not resembled on the other (for example after adding 'test.txt' file I cannot see that file from the other machine and same AD user - admin). Added SO question recently: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/68854220/azure-virtual-machines-with-shared-premium-disk-cannot-see-data but no luck so far.

Azure Files seem to synchronize the contents just fine, but when our application is writing something at the end of execution, it takes few minutes to stream 10 mb when outputting results into csv if that "Azure Files" volume is used.

Cheers, thank you!