Detailed Guide to Mount Azure Blob on Windows Machine

Overview

This blog will give a detailed guide to Mount Azure Blog on Windows Machine. There are many use cases for the mount, including Backup, SYNC, Upload, Download, etc.

Let us first understand the need to understand Azure Blob in detail. Azure Blob storage is a service from Microsoft Azure. It allows the individual user to store large amounts of unstructured data on Microsoft’s data storage platform inside various data centers.

Blob stands for Binary Large Object, which includes objects such as images, videos, MP3s, and various multimedia files. These are unstructured/ unorganized data because they don’t follow any data model.

The common storage needs are more the emphasis of Azure Blob storage. In other words, it contains anything individuals might use to store their information, such as pictures, movies, and papers. The volume of these files and logs at the enterprise level are files, backups, builds, etc. are considerably higher, so for all these use-cases, Azure blob is used

For an organization, storing blobs would entail maintaining backups of earlier iterations of a website, along with the material and images on it, all of which would need to be accessed from many places. Instead of keeping this information on a server in a single location, a business may use Azure data storage to make it easier and faster to access.

One of the most significant advantages for businesses is that Azure Blob storage allows them to store all their content assets in one place. These will then be available across their different departments and all over the world. The speed, scalability, ease of access, and security make such Blob storage very attractive for all organizations.

Blob Types Supported by Azure Storage

• Block blobs store text and binary data. Block blobs are blocks of data that can be managed individually. Block blobs can store up to about 190.7 TiB.
• Append blobs are made up of blocks like block blobs but are optimized for append operations. Append blobs are ideal for scenarios such as logging data from virtual machines.
• Page blobs store random access files up to 8 TiB in size. Page blobs store virtual hard drive (VHD) files and serve as disks for Azure virtual machines.

Now let us look at different types of Blobs, use cases, and advantages. Follow up question arises about how to make this Blob easily accessible to us over even more accurately how to mount this Blob in our local directory so it can be easily accessible, so now we will follow through steps of mounting Blob on a windows machine.

Steps to Mount Blob

1. Create an Azure Storage Blob Container, i.e., democloudthat

2. Copy the storage Blob name and storage account key.

3. Open PowerShell with Admin Privileges and change the execution Policy to All Signed or to Bypass

Check Execution Policy using Get-ExecutionPolicy

4. Install Chocolatey using the below command

5. Install rclone using the below command.

6. Now using below command, we will connect and authenticate to Blob

7. After the storage account authentication, verify the Blob by the below command

8. To mount Azure Blob on the Windows file system, install winfsp.

9. We will specify the directory to mount the Blob on the file system.

10. Verify the blob mount on the specified directory in the above step

11. Since the service is running in PowerShell, the Blob is mounted temporarily. When we stop the service in PowerShell, the mount will be removed but we have to mount it permanently on the file system.

12. nssm will help in mounting the Blob to the file system permanently. Follow the below command to install nssm

13. Follow the below steps to mount on the file system

A wizard will open put the details as shown

Click install service.

14. After installing the service, open the services.msc blobmount can be seen as a service already. Click on the properties and Log-On section and provide details as shown below.

Click on apply to apply the changes

15. Start the services again and mount is successful and permanent

Conclusion

We have successfully Mounted Azure Blob on Windows Machine, which can be used in various scenarios such as storing Backup, SYNC, Upload, Download, etc.

If you have a large amount of data that you would like to move to or download from Windows Azure Blob Storage but are held up by internet speed and bandwidth restrictions, then Windows Azure now has a solution for you. Windows Azure provides a cost-effective and easy option to transfer large volumes of data using the new Windows Azure Import/Export Service.

To learn more about Setup, Connect, and Understand Working of Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer, read this blog. 

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Drop a query if you have any questions regarding Blob Storage and I will get back to you quickly.

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