Why shared drive is not showing content from one Azure VM to another VM?

Jegadheesan Jayavel 41 Reputation points
2022-06-02T19:21:16.693+00:00

Created two Azure VMs under same Resource Group.
Created a Shared Disk (Premium SSD) and attached to both the VMs.

While login to the VM shared disk was not visible. Through the Server Manager (inside VM), we could see the shared drive was uninitialized. Upon initialize and allocate the space, drive was successfully shown in both the VMs.

We are able to place the files from both the VM. But files placed from one VM is not visible in other VM.

How to make the shared persistent disk to show the files from both the machines?

Azure Virtual Machines
Azure Virtual Machines
An Azure service that is used to provision Windows and Linux virtual machines.
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Azure Disk Storage
Azure Disk Storage
A high-performance, durable block storage designed to be used with Azure Virtual Machines and Azure VMware Solution.
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  1. deherman-MSFT 33,776 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2022-06-02T20:14:38.787+00:00

    @Jegadheesan Jayavel

    Azure Shared Disks is designed primarily for clustered applications and very specific workloads. Shared managed disks do not natively offer a fully managed file system that can be accessed using SMB/NFS. You need to use a cluster manager, like Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) or Pacemaker, that handles cluster node communication and write locking. See here for some example workloads.

    It sounds like you should consider Azure Files. Azure Files offers fully managed file shares in the cloud that are accessible via the industry standard Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. Azure file shares can be mounted concurrently by cloud or on-premises deployments of Windows, Linux, and macOS. Additionally, Azure file shares can be cached on Windows Servers with Azure File Sync for fast access near where the data is being used. I recommend reading through Planning for an Azure Files deployment for more details.

    I hope this helps. Let us know if you have any further questions and we will be happy to help.

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  1. Alex Bykovskyi 1,831 Reputation points
    2022-06-06T12:40:05.723+00:00

    Hey,

    As mentioned, you need to create Failover Cluster (I assume you are using Windows Server) and create CSV to have simultaneous access from both VMs. The following articles should help with configuration: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/starwind-virtual-san-for-hyper-v-2-node-hyperconverged-scenario-with-windows-server-2016/

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/virtual-machines/windows/failover-cluster-instance-azure-shared-disks-manually-configure?view=azuresql

    Cheers,

    Alex Bykvoskyi

    StarWind Software

    Note: Posts are provided “AS IS” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

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