I have used the file storage explorer in multiple systems, and it seems a bit cumbersome and not very efficient, particularly with authentication. It can be tricky to set it up.

As a developer or technical asset of Microsoft Azure Data Storage, it's relatively easy to navigate. However, for non-technical individuals attempting to use the file storage on their laptops and installing file storage explorer, there may be authentication issues that are difficult to resolve from a non-technical perspective. This has been my experience, and I believe it could be challenging for someone who is not tech-savvy.

One thing that Azure File Storage could help us with is some kind of impact assessment. When we talk to some of our larger customers who have between 500 and 1,000 applications, we normally do an assessment of all these applications and then tell them which ones are ready to be lifted and shifted, and which ones need to re-architected. It would really help if Azure File Storage could come up with a better way to give estimations of the total investment required, including all costs incurred during the migration.

For some aspects of file storage, there will only be approximate requirements, but for others there are empirical formulas, and it would greatly assist the solution architects and customers to have access to better assessments in this area. For instance, in one case we had, there was an unexpected escalation of costs which were not factored in from the beginning. Of course, this wasn't Azure's fault, but an impact assessment to prevent this kind of occurrence would definitely help. And, I believe, it would be a win-win for both us and Azure, because it would help Azure bring the right customers to the table.

Another thing I could see being useful is some form of diagnostic tool with perhaps a list of errors that can potentially happen. From a solution architect perspective, I would want to give my customers some pointers about possible pitfalls, and a diagnostic tool like this would make it much easier for me.

From an internal team perspective, there's also lot of improvements that could be done when it comes to Active Directory. We find a lot of errors occur in our Single Sign-On integration with AD because not all scenarios are integrated from isolated networks, and they are often not configured to be isolated during the project. So, at times, when you go live, you'll suddenly hear someone screaming. To prevent these errors, I would propose a type of auto-discovery feature that is automated to some extent.

Finally, a typical issue that we see during file migrations is failed transfers for whatever reason (e.g. network connection issues), and the current methods that Azure employs for dealing with these failures could be improved upon. My suggestion would be some kind of transfer management solution, especially one that is enabled for mobile. With this, there might be a type of dashboard where I would be able to easily see what percentage of the transfer has been completed, and take the actions necessary to go back and restart the transfer at the point where it failed. Anything more intuitive than the current solution would help us during file transfer failures.

Microsoft Azure File Storage is not that easy to use. We had a few concerns regarding the communication between Microsoft's on-premises and cloud versions, which we feel is because of the geolocation differences between our business and the data centers of Microsoft. The product should be easier to use.

Since the initial setup phase of Microsoft Azure File Storage was not easy, it should be made easier by getting Microsoft to pay closer attention to the Middle East region.

The integration of the site storage with SQL was not completely seamless. We had to do some extra steps as there was no immediate support for file storage, only for block storage. For whatever reason, since we were working with a managed service and a secure service, most of the connections we made were not very successful. We had to do some networking. The integration has room for improvement.

In our process, we use the entire system just as an intermediate. An ideal solution is to gather the information from the endpoint and then move it into a database or sign-up. With that, we can do some analytics. In the future, it would be nice if there was a tight progression between the five storage and the analytical tools. For example, if we are working with Power BI, it would be very helpful if we could point to the signer, SQL environment, global environment, or file system environment and have them be completely synchronous.

A lot of things could be better, especially when it comes to accessing File Storage for monitoring. Azure Copy is fine, but there could be additional integration and security features for those who want more privacy and control over access to Azure.

The support could improve.

Licensing costs are expensive and I'd like to see the price come down.

The solution is expensive. Considering the enterprise licensing required for the solution, the cost of the solution is an area where the product needs improvement.

Firewall rules should be introduced to secure the access date from any virus attacks. Anti-virus should be introduced in the work filtering and document filtering.

I have had issues migrating my data to another subscription. 

Microsoft Azure File Storage needs more integrations.

I encountered a problem with the solution: Microsoft said you could directly integrate Azure file share on your PC by enabling that feature in Microsoft Azure File Storage. It worked at first, but then, when I restarted my PC, that feature stopped working. I did that only for research purposes, so I wonder if Microsoft fixed that bug or if that Azure file share integration feature in Microsoft Azure File Storage was designed wrong.

In the future, I also want to see GRC added to the portal to integrate it with Microsoft Azure File Storage and other Azure services. If you enroll or sign up for Azure services, your country may not have GRC available in the portal, so you may have to choose a strange country, for example, Kenya, to activate credit. Having GRC helps many students, enterprises, and users easily access Microsoft Azure File Storage.

Keep attention and do not share the storage account key since it can be a security issue. With the storage account key, you can do everything you want on the storage account and on the file shares. It can be useful because this is the only way to work at home with an unmanaged PC from my company, but at the same time, if you share this key to external users, it could be a security issue.

It's a bit tricky to manage the permissions, because you have to set RBAC rights then mount the Azure File Share on your PC/server and then start to manage NTFS permissions locally.

The ability to check the open files would be a nice additional feature. On-premise you can check which files are open. On Azure, I haven't found this part.

Management and Troubleshooting often need Powershell commands.

It’s a challenge to find the right support person. The technical support must be improved.

The solution is not user-friendly.

Next year, I will likely change my equipment to update everything. That would be better. 

It's not very intuitive. I'd like the screen to be more user-friendly. The usability is not good. 

It would be helpful if we could remove data that we don't frequently access to reduce the cost of the storage.

We don't have anything that we would improve. We are happy with how it has worked and have not encountered any challenges.

There is always going to be room for improvement. Certain use cases will evolve where file storage is used with visual ID and group mapping. As long as the dynamic mapping is working seamlessly, there aren’t any changes needed in Microsoft Azure File Storage. As of now, I've got no such recommendations.

Importing and exporting data needs to have a bit more documentation. Recently, Microsoft has actually stepped up and provided some training about securing data but they need to have a solution in case the data needs to be migrated. They need to include a service to securely transfer the data through Microsoft and encrypt it.

The product’s pricing could be better. Additionally, they should increase time and storage capacity for free accounts used by students.

If it is not for an application, then SharePoint or Office 365 could actually solve our problem for file storage and internal communications. But if you want to access files within an application, using Azure would be preferable.

However, the solution could use some additional tools for sharing files. It would be great to have everything in one place for a more streamlined experience.

Another area of improvement is pricing. Maybe Microsoft can make it more economical because it is a costly affair. So if they can optimize their pricing for broader customer use, including small and medium-sized companies.

The solution offered everything we needed. It was not lacking features. 

The pricing could be better. 

The security could always be modernized. 

Microsoft Azure File Storage should improve its pricing. 

There is room for improvement in helping customers understand and integrate Azure File Storage into their operations. Additionally, adding more AI capabilities and innovation could make it even better for customers in the future.

In our use cases, we see the weakness in mobile internet connectivity.

When the user clicks the pictures of the identification and verification, addresses, those images have different sizes. If you click via the HD camera, it takes four to six Mbps. The issue is not with the Microsoft Azure File Storage, but the issue is at the front end when it is uploaded from the mobile network. This is the main pain area for us, and we are looking for a way to compress the images to the best possible minimum size, to allow them to be uploaded without any issues, without any dependencies on the external network.

The product must provide better security functions.

The pricing and technical support could be better.

They can improve the ability to assign permissions to different groups or users. 

It's a bit complex to set up. Other than that, there is nothing to improve.

The solution should support all the legacy storage systems. 

They should make it easy to migrate in one click.

In terms of storage and latency, it should be more optimized. 

The Microsoft File System should support all the regions. 

Some customers want to use SharePoint instead of File Share. SharePoint offers one terabyte of storage for an organization, and for small or medium organizations, this size is good enough to store their files. However, Microsoft should also think of very small organizations that might only have 10 or 20 users spread across the world. It would be ideal if they had some sort of file share system designed for their much smaller needs. 

It would be good if they added some features that make the solution easier to access for everyone.

They should make the solution more user-friendly.

I think the place where the product really needs the most attention is in the Intune and the MDM products. They are building it out pretty quickly in updates, yet at the same time that is probably the place where I have seen the most reason to simplifying for ease-of-use. Right now you kind of have to spend some time to wrap your head around the product instead of it being something that is easier to use and easier to onboard into production. In a way, that is just part of the industry standard right now. Any MDM product you choose is going to be a little difficult that way, and it is going to require some build-out that is maybe more than you had expected or cared to dive into.  

If they improved Intune to where it was more deployable out-of-the-box, that would be great. We just have to wait and see if they can do it.  

I think the pricing of the product can be reduced. 

The pricing could be improved. They need to make the costs more transparent so users know what they will be charged and why ahead of time.

Technical support could be improved.

So far we haven't had any difficulties with migrations. Sometimes I call support to help me with the migration of the servers. So far it has been all very easy.

We have performance issues with Microsoft Azure File Storage. We have a standard version and we have also a premium version. I would like to upgrade to premium but that is not possible on the fly. So you really need to do a migration.

I was investigating when do I get to the boundaries of the premium storage. Because now we have a couple of users using it, but I'm sure that once we got to premium, there will come a time that we will again have performance issues.

That's why I was looking into comparisons with the NetApp store. It seems that it has a higher performance for the roaming profile.

I feel that we cannot just upgrade but we should really do an immigration with all the difficulties.

There are limits to the usage capacity-wise, and it is not easy to measure because they just use some other figures. You really need to understand what you are seeing if you do performance monitoring.

I do not think that NetApp is better in that way, to be honest.

I'd like to see integration with other platforms as part of the solution. If you have a company to do cloud strategy that could have an impact.

The upload speed has room for improvement.

The way retention policies are applied could be more optimized. Additionally, the pricing should be more competitive with other CHPs, and stability can be improved.

The tool needs to be more intuitive. 

Also, the product name keeps changing. It can be confusing when product names change frequently, especially with Microsoft. Sometimes, if you refer to a product by a certain name last year, it might have a different name six months later.