There is not a lot of information on Azure Files Transactions, so I thought id try my best to explain my understanding of the transactions, the costs and some other useful information.
This will be a 2 part blog, the first part covering the transactions and how they are broken down. The 2nd part will include how to view all the transactions.
What are Azure File Transactions?
Microsoft defines transactions as:
“Transactions are operations or requests against Azure Files to upload, download, or otherwise manipulate the contents of the file share. Every action taken on a file share translates to one or more transactions, and on standard shares that use the pay-as-you-go billing model, that translates to transaction costs.”
Looking at the Azure Price Calculator, selecting File Storage you will notice a little drop down section under “Transactions and data transfer”, which lists the following transactions:
- Write transactions
- List transactions
- Read transactions
- All other operations except for delete

Prices above are for UK South region.
Looking at the above, the Azure charges for transactions appear very reasonable at £0.0572 per 10 0000 write transactions. However we need to uderstand what is considered a Write, Read, and Other transaction.
Below we can see each of these transactions broken down into there various sections. Currently delete transactions are not charged.
Operation type | Write transactions | List transactions | Read transactions | Other transactions | Delete transactions |
Management operations | CreateShare SetFileServiceProperties SetShareMetadata SetShareProperties | ListShares | GetFileServiceProperties GetShareAcl GetShareMetadata GetShareProperties GetShareStats | DeleteShare | |
Data operations | CopyFile Create CreateDirectory CreateFile PutRange PutRangeFromURL SetDirectoryMetadata SetFileMetadata SetFileProperties SetInfo SetShareACL Write PutFilePermission | ListFileRanges ListFiles ListHandles | FilePreflightRequest GetDirectoryMetadata GetDirectoryProperties GetFile GetFileCopyInformation GetFileMetadata GetFileProperties QueryDirectory QueryInfo Read GetFilePermission | AbortCopyFile Cancel ChangeNotify Close Echo Ioctl Lock Logoff Negotiate OplockBreak SessionSetup TreeConnect TreeDisconnect CloseHandles AcquireFileLease BreakFileLease ChangeFileLease ReleaseFileLease | ClearRange DeleteDirectoryDeleteFile |
In part 2 ill create some files, and upload some data and show you how we can view the transactions that are created, and try