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Technical Lab: Configure snapshots and soft delete for Azure Files

Questions​

Question 1 — Multiple Choice​

An operations team needs to ensure that accidentally deleted files in an Azure Files share can be recovered for up to 14 days after deletion. When configuring soft delete, what is the expected behavior when a file is deleted within this retention period?

A. The file is moved to a separate backup container and can be restored via portal or CLI.

B. The file remains in the share in a hidden state and can be recovered with an undelete operation, without additional storage cost.

C. The file is marked as deleted and remains visible in the share, but occupies billable capacity until the end of the retention period.

D. The file is immediately removed from the data plane, but metadata is retained to allow restoration.

Question 2 — Technical Scenario​

An administrator executes the following command to create a snapshot of an Azure Files share:

az storage share snapshot \
  --name financeiro \
  --account-name stgprod01 \
  --account-key <key>

A few hours later, he tries to access the snapshot via SMB on Windows by mounting the share with the default path. The snapshot doesn't appear in Explorer's listing. What is the most likely reason?

A. Azure Files snapshots are not accessible via SMB; only via REST API or Azure Portal.

B. The command was executed without the --metadata parameter, which prevents snapshot visibility in the SMB client.

C. Snapshots are accessible via SMB only through the special Previous Versions path in Windows, not as direct entries in Explorer.

D. The snapshot was created successfully, but SMB access requires the share to be in a storage account with Premium SKU.

Question 3 — True or False​

An Azure Files share snapshot captures the complete state of all files at the time of creation and therefore consumes storage space equal to the total size of the share at that moment.

True or False?

Question 4 — Technical Scenario​

A company has an Azure Files share with soft delete enabled and retention period configured for 7 days. A developer accidentally deletes an entire folder containing 200 files on a Monday. The following Thursday, the administrator tries to recover the files through the Azure portal but finds no recoverable items. What is the most likely cause?

A. Soft delete in Azure Files protects only individual files deleted via REST API; deletions made via SMB are not covered.

B. The Azure portal doesn't display soft delete items by default; it's necessary to enable the show deleted items option in the interface.

C. Soft delete is only applicable to the entire share (share-level), not to individual files or folders within the share.

D. The 7-day retention period has already expired, as the deletion occurred more than 7 calendar days ago.

Question 5 — Multiple Choice​

When comparing snapshots of Azure Files shares with the soft delete feature, which statement correctly describes a fundamental difference between the two mechanisms?

A. Soft delete protects against data corruption, while snapshots protect only against accidental deletion.

B. Snapshots are initiated manually or by external scheduling and represent an immutable point in time, while soft delete is automatically triggered on deletion and allows recovery within a configurable period.

C. Soft delete retains incremental versions of modified files, while snapshots retain only the share state at creation time without granular recovery support.

D. Snapshots and soft delete are mutually exclusive; enabling one automatically disables the other in the same storage account.

Answer Key and Explanations​

Answer Key — Question 1​

Answer: C

Soft delete in Azure Files keeps deleted files visible in the share in a soft-deleted state for the configured retention period. During this period, the space occupied by the data continues to be billed, as the underlying blocks still exist in storage. Recovery is done with an undelete operation, but the claim that there's no additional cost (option B) is incorrect: the cost exists because retained data consumes capacity.

Option A describes the behavior of an external backup, not native soft delete. Option D confuses soft delete with logical metadata deletion, which is not the mechanism used.

Answer Key — Question 2​

Answer: C

Azure Files snapshots are accessible via SMB on Windows through the Previous Versions feature, available by right-clicking on the mounted folder. They don't appear as regular entries in Explorer because they're not regular directories, but rather restore points accessible through the operating system's versioning interface.

Option A is wrong because snapshots are indeed accessible via SMB. Option B is a plausible distractor, but --metadata is optional and doesn't affect SMB visibility. Option D is incorrect because SMB access to snapshots doesn't depend on Premium SKU.

Answer Key — Question 3​

Answer: False

Azure Files snapshots are incremental. At creation time, only data that differs from the previous snapshot (or current share state) is stored. The first snapshot retains a complete copy only of blocks that are subsequently changed or deleted. Therefore, the actual storage consumption of a snapshot corresponds to accumulated differences since creation, not the total size of the share. This behavior is identical to blob snapshots in Azure Storage.

Answer Key — Question 4​

Answer: B

The Azure portal doesn't display files and folders in soft delete state by default. The administrator needs to explicitly activate the show deleted items option in the share interface to view and restore recoverable items. Since the deletion occurred on Monday and the recovery attempt was on Thursday (within the 7-day period), the deadline hasn't expired.

Option A is wrong: soft delete covers deletions via both SMB and REST. Option C confuses file soft delete with share soft delete, which are distinct and independent functionalities. Option D is a plausible chronological distractor, but 3 days are within the configured 7-day period.

Answer Key — Question 5​

Answer: B

The fundamental distinction is the activation mechanism and protection model. Snapshots are created explicitly (manually or via automation like Azure Backup) and represent an immutable state of the share at a specific point in time. Soft delete, on the other hand, is automatically triggered by the service itself when a deletion occurs, without requiring prior intervention, and keeps data recoverable for a configurable period.

Option A is wrong because snapshots also protect against corruption, as long as the snapshot was created before the corruption. Option C incorrectly describes soft delete as an incremental versioning system, which is not how it works. Option D is factually false: both features can coexist and complement each other as distinct protection layers.