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zonal-placement.md

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title Zonal Placement for Azure File Shares
description Learn to use zonal placement for Azure storage accounts so you can choose the specific availability zone for your SSD file shares.
author khdownie
ms.service azure-file-storage
ms.topic how-to
ms.date 11/06/2025
ms.author kendownie
ms.custom
references_regions

Use zonal placement for Azure file shares

✔️ Applies to: Classic SMB and NFS file shares created with the Microsoft.Storage resource provider and using the SSD media tier with LRS redundancy

✖️ Doesn't apply to: File shares created with the Microsoft.FileShares resource provider (preview)

Zonal placement allows you to select the specific availability zone in which your Azure Files storage account resides. If desired, you can place your virtual machines (VMs) in the same zone to reduce latency between compute and storage.

This feature is currently available only for SSD (premium) storage accounts using locally redundant storage (LRS) in supported regions.

Note

This article applies to classic Azure file shares only (Microsoft.Storage). Zonal placement isn't currently possible for file shares created with the Microsoft.FileShares resource provider (preview).

Prerequisites

This article assumes that you have an Azure subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, then create a free account before you begin.

Region support

Zonal placement is supported for SSD storage accounts with LRS redundancy in the following Azure regions. If the region you want to deploy in isn't supported, reach out to the Azure Files team for assistance.

  • Asia East
  • Canada Central
  • Central US
  • Chile Central
  • East US
  • Germany West Central
  • Indonesia Central
  • Israel Central
  • Italy North
  • Japan West
  • Malaysia West
  • Mexico Central
  • New Zealand North
  • Qatar Central
  • Poland Central
  • South Africa North
  • South Central US
  • Spain Central
  • West US 2
  • West US 3

How zonal placement works

When creating a new SSD storage account, you can create either a regional or zonal storage account. A zonal storage account is placed in a specific availability zone within a supported Azure region, offering guaranteed data locality. Zonal placement can also potentially reduce latency and improve performance for your workload if you place your compute resources (VMs) in the same zone as your storage account.

You can only specify a specific zone when creating a new storage account. Existing storage accounts can only be pinned to a zone selected by Azure. Once a storage account is pinned to a zone, it can only be moved back to a regional configuration. For example, if your storage account is pinned to zone 1, you can't move it to zone 2 or zone 3.

Create a new zonal storage account

You can create a new zonal storage account by using the Azure portal or PowerShell.

Portal

Follow these steps to create a new zonal storage account by using the Azure portal.

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

  2. Navigate to Storage accounts and select + Create.

  3. On the Basics tab, select the Azure subscription and resource group, or optionally create a new resource group.

  4. Enter a name for the storage account. The name must be unique across all existing storage account names in Azure. It must be 3 to 24 characters long, and can contain only lowercase letters and numbers.

  5. Select a region. Make sure it's on the supported list for zonal placement.

  6. Under Preferred storage type, select Azure Files.

  7. Under Performance, select Premium.

  8. Under File share billing, select the desired option.

  9. Under Redundancy, select Locally redundant storage (LRS).

  10. If the selected region supports zonal placement, a Zone options dropdown appears. It offers three choices:

    • None: Creates a regional storage account.
    • Self-selected zone: Enables a secondary dropdown to select a specific availability zone (1, 2, or 3).
    • Azure-selected zone: Azure automatically assigns zone 1, 2, or 3.

    :::image type="content" source="media/zonal-placement/zone-options.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing the three different zonal placement options in the Azure portal." border="true":::

    Choose the desired option and proceed with storage account configuration.

  11. When configuration is complete, select Review + Create, and then select Create.

PowerShell

You can use Azure PowerShell to create zonal or regional storage accounts. Replace <resource-group>, <storage-account-name>, and <region> with your desired values. For <SkuName>, specify either Premium_LRS for file shares or PremiumV2_LRS to provision capacity, throughput, and IOPS individually (Provisioned v2).

Create a storage account in an Azure-selected zone

To create a storage account and have Azure automatically assign a zone, set ZonePlacementPolicy to Any by running the following command:

New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <storage-account-name> -Location <region> -SkuName <SkuName> -Kind FileStorage -ZonePlacementPolicy Any​

Create a storage account in a self-selected zone

To create a storage account and specify an availability zone, run the following command:

New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <storage-account-name> -Location <region> -SkuName <SkuName> -Kind FileStorage -Zone <zone-number>

Create a regional storage account

To create a regional (non-zonal) storage account, set ZonePlacementPolicy to None by running the following command:

New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <storage-account-name> -Location <region> -SkuName <SkuName> -Kind FileStorage -ZonePlacementPolicy None​

Pin an existing storage account to an Azure-selected zone

You can also pin an existing SSD storage account to an Azure-selected availability zone by using the Azure portal or PowerShell. Once pinned, the storage account won't be moved. If you need help aligning your existing storage account with your VM, reach out to the Azure Files team for assistance.

Important

Existing storage accounts can only be pinned to availability zones that are automatically selected by Azure. You can't choose a specific zone number.

Portal

Follow these steps to pin an existing storage account to an Azure-selected zone using the Azure portal.

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal and navigate to the SSD storage account that you want to pin.

  2. On the Overview tab, select Availability.

  3. The Move storage account availability zone pane opens. A dropdown next to the storage account name appears with two options:

    • Azure-selected zone
    • None (to use the regional storage account configuration)

    :::image type="content" source="media/zonal-placement/move-availability-zone.png" alt-text="Screenshot of the Azure portal showing how to pin an existing storage account to an Azure-selected zone." lightbox="media/zonal-placement/move-availability-zone.png" border="true":::

  4. Choose Azure-selected zone, and then select Move.

The storage account will now be pinned to the selected zone, as reflected in the Availability section on the Overview tab.

PowerShell

To pin an existing storage account to an Azure-selected zone by using Azure PowerShell, run the following commands. Replace <resource-group>, <storage-account-name>, and <region> with your values. For <SkuName>, specify either Premium_LRS or PremiumV2_LRS.

New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <storage-account-name> -Location <region> -SkuName <SkuName> -Kind FileStorage -ZonePlacementPolicy None​
Set-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <storage-account-name> -ZonePlacementPolicy Any​

Unpin a storage account from a zone

You can also unpin a storage account from a zone and then convert the zonal storage account to a regional storage account. This is a prerequisite if you want to move the storage account from LRS to zone-redundant storage (ZRS), for example.

You can unpin a storage account from a zone by using the Azure portal or PowerShell.

Portal

Follow these steps to unpin a zonal storage account from a zone using the Azure portal.

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal and navigate to the zonal storage account that you want to unpin.

  2. On the Overview tab, select Availability.

  3. The Move storage account availability zone pane opens. A dropdown next to the storage account name appears with two options:

    • Azure-selected zone
    • None (to use the regional storage account configuration)

    :::image type="content" source="media/zonal-placement/unpin-availability-zone.png" alt-text="Screenshot of the Azure portal showing how to unpin a storage account from an availability zone." lightbox="media/zonal-placement/unpin-availability-zone.png" border="true":::

  4. Choose None, and then select Move.

The storage account will now be unpinned from the zone, as reflected in the Availability section on the Overview tab. If desired, you can now change the redundancy setting for the storage account from LRS to ZRS.

PowerShell

To unpin a zonal storage account from a zone by using Azure PowerShell, run the following commands. Replace <resource-group>, <storage-account-name>, and <region> with your values. For <SkuName>, specify either Premium_LRS or PremiumV2_LRS.

New-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <storage-account-name> -Location <region> -SkuName <SkuName> -Kind FileStorage -ZonePlacementPolicy Any​
Set-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName <resource-group> -Name <storage-account-name> -ZonePlacementPolicy None​