Size an Azure file share and derive premium baseline IOPS, burst IOPS and throughput from the provisioned GiB.
A premium file share is provisioned, not consumed: you pay for the size you declare and Azure grants performance from that same number, which is why growing the share is also the way to buy IOPS and throughput. Standard shares invert the model — you pay for what you store plus every transaction, but performance is fixed and much lower. Teams hit the IOPS ceiling of a premium share long before they fill it, and the fix is counter-intuitive: provision more GiB. Confirm the per-GiB and per-transaction prices for your region in the Azure pricing calculator, since standard shares also differ by access tier.
Azure Files
Premium baseline IOPS = 400 + 1 per provisioned GiB (capped at 102,400); burst = max(4,000, 3 × baseline); throughput MiB/s = (40 + 0.04 × GiB) ingress + (60 + 0.06 × GiB) egress.
Premium baseline IOPS = 400 + 1 per provisioned GiB (capped at 102,400); burst = max(4,000, 3 × baseline); throughput MiB/s = (40 + 0.04 × GiB) ingress + (60 + 0.06 × GiB) egress. A premium file share is provisioned, not consumed: you pay for the size you declare and Azure grants performance from that same number, which is why growing the share is also the way to buy IOPS and throughput. Standard shares invert the model — you pay for what you store plus every transaction, but performance is fixed and much lower.
Teams hit the IOPS ceiling of a premium share long before they fill it, and the fix is counter-intuitive: provision more GiB. Confirm the per-GiB and per-transaction prices for your region in the Azure pricing calculator, since standard shares also differ by access tier.
This calculator takes 8 inputs: Share type, Provisioned size (premium), Premium price per provisioned GiB, Data stored (standard), Standard price per GiB used, Transactions (standard), Price per 10,000 transactions, Snapshot data stored. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.