File shares
About file shares
File Shares is Gcore’s Network File System (NFS) as a service. It allows you to create, manage and share file systems across various Virtual Machines (VMs), Bare Metal, and Managed Kubernetes pods within your cloud infrastructure. The service supports the NFS protocol and works with both Linux and Windows VMs.
How does file shares work?
You create a file share and configure the access rules. Once your file share is created, we allocate a NFS server with the standard disk type to host your shared files. The file share becomes available to Virtual Machines, Bare Metal servers and Kubernetes pods within the private network it is connected to. To access the file share, first mount it to the local file systems of your servers. Once mounted, you can access and interact with the file share as if it is an integral part of your own local file system. The NFS protocol allows servers within a subnetwork to simultaneously read, write, and modify files on the file share, providing data consistency and facilitating team collaborations.Use cases
- Cloud infrastructure storage : Connect multiple servers to the shared file storage to access the same data across servers and create an efficient ecosystem of distributed applications or clustered environments.
- Backup and archival storage : Efficiently store backups, archival data, as well as the information to be extracted from Virtual Machines or a physical servers.
- Web content delivery : Store and serve static web content such as images and videos to improve performance of web applications running in the Cloud.
- NFS as a persistent volume for Kubernetes : Use the file storage to organize persistent volumes of Kubernetes with RWX (ReadWriteMany) option.
Features
Gcore Cloud’s File Shares service enables you to:- Create and manage file shares using NFS protocol
- Attach file shares to multiple instances
- Adjust file share sizes
- Delete and manage file shares
- View share information via API
- Select or create networks for share availability
- Set up access rules for file shares
- Create and recover from snapshots
Benefits
- On-demand scaling of your storage. Scale your storage resources on demand without the hassle of managing physical hardware, leading to cost savings and improved operational efficiency. Increase the file storage capacity at any time—it’s as easy as changing the parameters of a Virtual Machine.
- Flexible data sharing across instances. Share and access data across multiple instances, such as Virtual Machines, Bare Metal servers, and Kubernetes pods.
- Cost savings. Consolidate your storage resources with Cloud File Shares, minimizing the need for redundant storage devices and reducing your overall storage costs.
- Simplified management. Easy storage management through a user interface, as well as through APIs and infrastructure as a code (IaaC) tools like Terraform.
File shares vs cloud storage
| S3 Object Storage | File Shares | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Designed for managing and storing vast amounts of unstructured data. Unlike traditional file systems with a hierarchical structure of directories and files, S3 Object Storage organizes data as discrete objects with associated metadata. Its purpose is to provide a scalable, durable, and cost-effective solution for various data-intensive applications and use cases. | Offers shared access to the same set of files and is designed with team collaboration in mind. It offers teams centralized data storage. |
| Performance and scalability | Scalability is key in object storage systems, enabling them to handle increasing amounts of data and workload demands as they grow over time. Our S3 Object Storage architecture is designed to provide seamless and efficient scalability to accommodate the massive amounts of unstructured data generated by modern applications. Storage scalability is achieved through architectural features such as horizontal scaling, data distribution, and specific load balancing across storage infrastructure. | The scalability of NFS is determined by the needs of a particular user’s cloud environment. An undeniable advantage of NFS is that it makes connecting storage to any of the most common cloud computing resources easy, whether Virtual Machines, physical servers, or containerized infrastructure. The performance of this type of storage is restricted only by the limitations of the underlying storage system. |
| Access | S3 Cloud Storage focuses on individual or isolated access to data. | File Shares is specifically designed to enable multiple users within a private network to access and collaborate on the same file in real time. |
| Use cases | - Data storage and archiving - Web hosting and content delivery - Data backup and disaster recovery - Big data and analytics - Application data and media storage - Data archiving and compliance - IoT (Internet of Things) - Storage for applications Object storage is a globally geo-distributed solution for providing unstructured data to any users who have the appropriate permissions via the S3 protocol. As a result, the operation of services is directly aligned with specific buckets and objects via the protocol. | The same use cases as for Cloud Storage. What differs is the approach to providing this data. Network Shared Storage is a local solution that operates in the customer’s private infrastructure. It connects to different resources as a separate network disk and, based on access rules, allows collaboration on a single disk space for different infrastructure entities. |