> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://gcore.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# About file shares

File Shares is Gcore's Network File System (NFS) as a service. It enables creating, managing, and sharing file systems across Virtual Machines (VMs), Bare Metal, and Managed Kubernetes pods within a cloud infrastructure. The service supports the NFS protocol and works with both Linux and Windows VMs.

## How do file shares work?

After a file share is created and access rules are configured, an NFS server with the standard disk type is provisioned to host the shared files. The file share becomes available to Virtual Machines, Bare Metal servers, and Kubernetes pods within the connected private network.

To access the file share, mount it to the local file system of each server. Once mounted, the file share is accessible as part of the 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 collaboration.

## Use cases

1. Cloud infrastructure storage: connect multiple servers to the shared file storage to access the same data across servers and build distributed applications or clustered environments.

2. Backup and archival storage: store backups and archival data, or extract data from Virtual Machines and physical servers.

3. Web content delivery: store and serve static web content — images, videos — to improve performance of web applications running in the cloud.

4. NFS as a persistent volume for Kubernetes: use the file storage to organize [persistent volumes](/cloud/kubernetes/storage/create-a-pvc-and-bind-it-to-a-pod) with the RWX (ReadWriteMany) access mode.

## Features

The File Shares service provides the following capabilities:

* Create and manage file shares using the 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

1. On-demand storage scaling. Storage resources scale on demand without managing physical hardware, reducing costs. File storage capacity can be increased at any time by adjusting capacity parameters.

2. Flexible data sharing across instances. Share and access data across multiple instances — Virtual Machines, Bare Metal servers, and Kubernetes pods.

3. Cost savings. Consolidating storage resources with Cloud File Shares minimizes redundant storage devices and reduces overall storage costs.

4. Simplified management. Storage management is available through the Customer Portal, the API, and infrastructure as code (IaC) 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 — a scalable and durable approach for data-intensive applications.                                                                                                     | Offers shared access to the same set of files and is designed with team collaboration in mind. It provides centralized data storage.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| Performance and scalability | Object storage scales to handle increasing amounts of data and workload demands over time. Scalability is achieved through horizontal scaling, data distribution, and load balancing across storage infrastructure.                                                                                                                                                                                               | The scalability of NFS is determined by the needs of the cloud environment. NFS connects storage to common cloud computing resources — Virtual Machines, physical servers, or containerized infrastructure — and its performance is limited only by the underlying storage system.                                                                                          |
| Access                      | S3 Cloud Storage focuses on individual or isolated access to data.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                | File Shares is 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<br />- Web hosting and content delivery<br />- Data backup and disaster recovery<br />- Big data and analytics<br />- Application data and media storage<br />- IoT (Internet of Things)<br />- Storage for applications<br /><br />Object storage is a globally geo-distributed solution for providing unstructured data to users with appropriate permissions via the S3 protocol. | The same use cases as for Cloud Storage. The key difference is the access model.<br /><br />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. |

## Billing

File Shares is charged based on total storage in gigabytes (GB). Current rates are listed on the [Gcore pricing page](https://gcore.com/pricing/cloud).