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I’m currently setting up a Nextcloud environment in Azure and need to integrate an existing departmental network drive. The goal is to make this drive available to users through Nextcloud.
Now I’m trying to decide between two architecture options and would appreciate insights from people who have experience with Azure + Nextcloud:
Option A:
Deploy a Nextcloud web server (VM) and mount an Azure File Share as External Storage in Nextcloud.
Option B:
Provision a VM and place both the Nextcloud application and all user data directly on the VM’s attached storage (Premium SSD v2).
From a best-practice perspective, Nextcloud recommends separating web server and storage components. Azure File Shares also offer scalable, shared storage without growing the VM disks. However, some admins report performance issues (latency, metadata operations, many small files) when using SMB/NFS as the main backend for active workloads.
Question:
Based on your experience in Azure and/or with Nextcloud, which approach would you recommend for this kind of use case?
Any pros/cons, performance notes, or “lessons learned” would be appreciated.