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Comparing the costs of StorSimple to Azure File Sync

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StorSimple is a discontinued physical and virtual appliance product offered by Microsoft to help customers manage their on-premises storage footprint by tiering data to Azure.

Note

The StorSimple Service (including the StorSimple Device Manager for 8000 and 1200 series and StorSimple Data Manager) has reached the end of support. The end of support for StorSimple was published in 2019 on the Microsoft LifeCycle Policy and Azure Communications pages. Additional notifications were sent via email and posted on the Azure portal and in the StorSimple overview. Contact Microsoft Support for additional details.

For most use cases of StorSimple, Azure File Sync is the recommended migration target for file shares being used with StorSimple. Azure File Sync supports similar capabilities to StorSimple, such as the ability to tier to the cloud. However, it provides additional features that StorSimple does not have, such as:

  • Storing data in a native file format accessible to administrators and users (Azure file shares) instead of a proprietary format only accessible through the StorSimple device
  • Multi-site sync
  • Integration with Azure services such as Azure Backup and Microsoft Defender for Storage

To learn more about Azure File Sync, see Introduction to Azure File Sync. To learn how to seamlessly migrate to Azure File Sync from StorSimple, see StorSimple 8100 and 8600 migration to Azure File Sync or StorSimple 1200 migration to Azure File Sync.

Although Azure File Sync supports additional functionality not supported by StorSimple, administrators familiar with StorSimple may be concerned about how much Azure File Sync will cost relative to their current solution. This document covers how to compare the costs of StorSimple to Azure File Sync to correctly determine the costs of each. Although the cost situation may vary by customer depending on the customer's usage and configuration of StorSimple, most customers will pay the same or less with Azure File Sync than they currently pay with StorSimple.

Cost comparison principles

To ensure a fair comparison of StorSimple to Azure File Sync and other services, you must consider the following principles:

  • All costs of the solutions are accounted for. Both StorSimple and Azure File Sync have multiple cost components. To do a fair comparison, all cost components must be considered.

  • Cost comparison doesn't include the cost of features StorSimple doesn't support. Azure File Sync supports multiple features that StorSimple does not. Some of the features of Azure File Sync, like multi-site sync, might increase the total cost of ownership of an Azure File Sync solution. It is reasonable to take advantage of new features as part of a migration; however, this should be viewed as an upgrade benefit of moving to Azure File Sync. Therefore, you should compare the costs of StorSimple and Azure File Sync before considering adopting new capabilities of Azure File Sync that StorSimple doesn't have.

  • Cost comparison considers as-is configuration of StorSimple. StorSimple supports multiple configurations that might increase or decrease the price of a StorSimple solution. To perform a fair cost comparison to Azure File Sync, you should consider only your current configuration of StorSimple. For example:

    • Use the same redundancy settings when comparing StorSimple and Azure File Sync. If your StorSimple solution uses locally redundant storage (LRS) for its storage usage in Azure Blob storage, you should compare it to the cost of locally redundant storage in Azure Files, even if you would like to switch to zonally redundant (ZRS) or geo-redundant (GRS) storage when you adopt Azure File Sync.

    • Use the Azure Blob storage pricing you are currently using. Azure Blob storage supports a v1 and a v2 pricing model. Most StorSimple customers would save money if they adopted the v2 pricing; however, most StorSimple customers are currently using the v1 pricing. Because StorSimple is going away, to perform a fair comparison, use the pricing for the pricing model you are currently using.

StorSimple pricing components

StorSimple has the following pricing components that you should consider in the cost comparison analysis:

  • Capital and operational costs of servers fronting/running StorSimple. Capital costs relate to the upfront cost of the physical, on-premises hardware, while operating costs relate to ongoing costs you must bear to run your solution, such as labor, maintenance, and power costs. Capital costs vary slightly depending on whether you have a StorSimple 8000 series appliance or a StorSimple 1200 series appliance:

    • StorSimple 8000 series. StorSimple 8000 series appliances are physical appliances that provide an iSCSI target that must be fronted by a file server. Although you may have purchased and configured this file server a long time ago, you should consider the capital and operational costs of running this server, in addition to the operating costs of running the StorSimple appliance. If your file server is hosted as a virtual machine (VM) on an on-premises hypervisor that hosts other workloads, to capture the opportunity cost of running the file server instead of other workloads, you should consider the file server VM as a fractional cost of the capital expenditure and operating costs for the host, in addition to the operating costs of the file server VM. Finally, you should include the cost of any StorSimple 8000 series virtual appliances and other VMs you might have deployed in Azure.

    • StorSimple 1200 series. StorSimple 1200 series appliances are virtual appliances that you can run on-premises in the hypervisor of your choice. StorSimple 1200 series appliances can be an iSCSI target for a file server or can directly be a file server without the need for an additional server. If you have the StorSimple 1200 series appliance configured as an iSCSI target, you should include both the cost of hosting the virtual appliance and the cost of the file server fronting it. Although your StorSimple 1200 series appliance may be hosted on a hypervisor that hosts other workloads, to capture the opportunity cost of running the StorSimple 1200 series appliance instead of other workloads, you should consider the virtual appliance as a fractional cost of the capital expenditure of the host, in addition to the operating costs of the virtual appliance.

  • StorSimple service costs. The StorSimple management service in Azure is a major component of most customers' Azure bill for StorSimple. There are two billing models for the StorSimple management service. Which one you are using likely depends on how and when you purchased your StorSimple appliance (consult your bill for more detail):

    • StorSimple management fee per GiB of storage. The StorSimple management fee per GiB of storage is the older billing model, and the one that most customers are using. In this model, you are charged for every logical GiB stored in StorSimple. You can see the price of management fee per GiB of storage on the StorSimple pricing page, beneath the first table in the text (described as the "old pricing model"). It is important to note that the pricing page commentary is incorrect - customers were not transitioned to the per device billing model in December 2021.

    • StorSimple management fee per device. The StorSimple management fee per device is the newer model, but fewer customers are using it. In this model, you are charged a daily fee for each day you have your device active. The fee expense depends on whether you have a physical or virtual appliance, and which specific appliance you have. You can see the price of management fee per device on the StorSimple pricing page (first table).

  • Azure Blob storage costs. StorSimple stores all of the data in its proprietary format in Azure Blob storage. When considering your Azure Blob storage costs, you should consider the storage utilization, which may be less or equal to the logical size of your data due to deduplication and compression done as part of StorSimple's proprietary data format, and also the transaction on storage, which is done whenever files are changed or ranges are recalled to on-premises from the device. Depending on when you deployed your StorSimple appliance, you may be subject to one of two blob storage pricing models:

    • Blob storage pricing v1, available in general purpose version 1 storage accounts. Based on the age of most StorSimple deployments, most StorSimple customers are using the v1 Azure Blob storage pricing. This pricing has higher per GiB prices and lower transaction prices than the v2 model, and lacks the storage tiers that the Blob storage v2 pricing has. To see the Blob storage v1 prices, visit the Azure Blob storage pricing page and select the Other tab.

    • Blob storage pricing v2, available in general purpose version 2 storage accounts. Blob storage v2 has lower GiB prices and higher transaction prices than the v1 model. Although some StorSimple customers could save money by switching to the v2 pricing, most StorSimple customers are currently using the v1 pricing. Since StorSimple is reaching end of life, you should stay with the pricing model that you are currently using, rather than pricing out the cost comparison with the v2 pricing. To see the Blob storage v2 prices, visit the Azure Blob storage pricing page and select the Recommended tab (the default when you load the page).

Azure File Sync pricing components

Azure File Sync has the following pricing components you should consider in the cost comparison analysis:

  • Capital and operational costs of Windows File Servers with one or more server endpoints. Azure File Sync as a replication solution is agnostic of where the Windows File Servers that are synchronized with Azure Files are; they could be hosted on-premises, in an Azure VM, or even in another cloud. Unless you are using Azure File Sync with a Windows File Server that is hosted in an Azure VM, the capital (i.e. the upfront hardware costs of your solution) and operating (i.e. cost of labor, electricity, etc.) costs will not be part of your Azure bill, but will still be very much a part of your total cost of ownership. You should consider the amount of data you need to cache on-premises, the number of CPUs and amount of memory your Windows File Servers need to host Azure File Sync workloads (see recommended system resources for more information), and other organization-specific costs you might have.

  • Per server licensing cost for servers registered with Azure File Sync. To use Azure File Sync with a specific Windows File Server, you must first register it with Azure File Sync's Azure resource, the Storage Sync Service. Each server that you register after the first server has a flat monthly fee. Although this fee is very small, it is one component of your bill to consider. To see the current price of the server registration fee for your desired region, see the File Sync section on Azure Files pricing page.

  • Azure Files costs. Because Azure File Sync is a synchronization solution for Azure Files, it will cause you to consume Azure Files resources. Some of these resources, like storage consumption, are relatively obvious, while others such as transaction and snapshot utilization may not be. For most customers, we recommend using standard file shares with Azure File Sync, although Azure File Sync is fully supported with premium file shares if desired.

    • Storage utilization. Azure File Sync will replicate any changes you have made to the path on your Windows File Server specified on your server endpoint to your Azure file share, thus causing storage to be consumed. On standard file shares, this means that adding or increasing the size of existing files on server endpoints will cause storage costs to grow, because the changes will be replicated. On premium file shares, changes will be consume provisioned space - it is your responsibility to periodically increase provisioning as needed to account for file share growth.

    • Snapshot utilization. Azure File Sync takes share and file-level snapshots as part of regular usage. Although snapshot utilization is always differential, this can contribute in a noticeable way to the total Azure Files bill.

    • Transactions from churn. As files change on server endpoints, the changes are uploaded to the cloud share, which generates transactions. When cloud tiering is enabled, additional transactions are generated for managing tiered files, including I/O happening on tiered files, in addition to egress costs. Although the quantity and type of transactions is difficult to predict due to churn rates and cache efficiency, you can use your previous transaction patterns to estimate future costs if you believe your future usage will be similar to your current usage.

    • Transactions from cloud enumeration. Azure File Sync enumerates the Azure File Share in the cloud once per day to discover changes that were made directly to the share so that they can sync down to the server endpoints. This scan generates transactions which are billed to the storage account at a rate of one ListFiles transaction per directory per day. You can put this number into the pricing calculator to estimate the scan cost.

    Tip

    If you don't know how many folders you have, check out the TreeSize tool from JAM Software GmbH.

Translating quantities from StorSimple

If you are trying to estimate the costs of Azure File Sync based on the expenses you see in StorSimple, be careful with the following items:

  • Azure Files bills on logical size (standard file shares). Unlike StorSimple, which encodes your data in the StorSimple proprietary format before storing it to Azure Blob storage, Azure Files stores the data from Azure File Sync in the same form as you see it on your Windows File Server. This means that if you are trying to figure out how much storage you will consume in Azure Files, you should look at the logical size of the data from StorSimple, rather than the amount stored in Azure Blob storage. Although this may look like it will cause you to pay more when using Azure File Sync, you need to do the complete analysis including all aspects of StorSimple costs to see the true comparison. Additionally, Azure Files offers reservations that enable you to buy storage at an up-to 36% discount over the list price. See Reservations in Azure Files.

  • Don't assume a 1:1 ratio between transactions on StorSimple and transactions in Azure File Sync. It might be tempting to look at the number of transactions done by StorSimple in Azure Blob storage and assume that number will be similar to the number of transactions that Azure File Sync will do on Azure Files. This number may overstate or understate the number of transactions Azure File Sync will do, so it's not a good way to estimate transaction costs. The best way to estimate transaction costs is to do a small proof-of-concept in Azure File Sync with a live file share similar to the file shares stored in StorSimple.

See also