Access Azure Storage Blob as file system

Question

We have a Worker role on Windows Azure that runs ffmpeg to convert media files using MediaHandler Pro. The files that we like to process is saved on a blob storage and the resulting files should also be stored there.

Our problem is that ffmpeg works on local files and not on URIs from the blob storage. Is there any way to mount a blob storage container and access the files there directly as a file system?

If this is not possible is it ok to download the files (they can be quite large, perhaps 1-2Gb) to the local file system*, process them there and then upload them. This sounds like redundant.

*) We have set up a CloudDrive that downloads this blob to a virtual disc

Answer 1

You have a couple ways of doing this - you can either create a cloud drive (VHD uploaded as page blob) and mount it or you can download the source files locally and work on scratch (local temp) disk. Of the two choices, I would download locally and use scratch disk.

If you were to use a cloud drive there would be 3 primary problems - the first is that it is a VHD and you have to mount it to get the files. The second is that only 1 instance can mount for RW, so you cannot split the work of encoding source files with multiple workers saving to same drive. The 3rd problem is that it is the slowest of all the storage options. For encoding, probably not a great choice.

Your best bet is to download the source files from blob storage (that is very fast, btw) into a 'Local Resource' (aka scratch disk) and work from there. Upload the resulting file into blob storage.

Answer 2

If your systems support SAMBA 3.0 you can simply map the Azure Storage Blob Container as a drive using the file share features now available.