Azure File Sync Agent v12 Release – March 2021

Improvements and issues that are fixed

New portal experience to configure network access policy and private endpoint connections

You can now use the portal to disable access to the Storage Sync Service public endpoint and to approve, reject and remove private endpoint connections. To configure the network access policy and private endpoint connections, open the Storage Sync Service portal, go to the Settings section and click Network.

Cloud Tiering support for volume cluster sizes larger than 64KiB

Cloud Tiering now supports volume cluster sizes up to 2MiB on Server 2019. To learn more, see What is the minimum file size for a file to tier?.

Measure bandwidth and latency to Azure File Sync service and storage account

The Test-StorageSyncNetworkConnectivity cmdlet can now be used to measure latency and bandwidth to the Azure File Sync service and storage account. Latency to the Azure File Sync service and storage account is measured by default when running the cmdlet.  Upload and download bandwidth to the storage account is measured when using the "-MeasureBandwidth" parameter.

For example, to measure bandwidth and latency to the Azure File Sync service and storage account, run the following PowerShell commands:

Import-Module "C:\Program Files\Azure\StorageSyncAgent\StorageSync.Management.ServerCmdlets.dll"

Test-StorageSyncNetworkConnectivity -MeasureBandwidth

Improved error messages in the portal when server endpoint creation fails

We heard your feedback and have improved the error messages and guidance when server endpoint creation fails.

Miscellaneous performance and reliability improvements

• Improved change detection performance to detect files that have changed in the Azure file share.

• Performance improvements for reconciliation sync sessions.

• Sync improvements to reduce ECS_E_SYNC_METADATA_KNOWLEDGE_SOFT_LIMIT_REACHED and ECS_E_SYNC_METADATA_KNOWLEDGE_LIMIT_REACHED errors.

• Fixed a bug that causes data corruption if cloud tiering is enabled and tiered files are copied using Robocopy with the /B parameter.

• Fixed a bug that can cause files to fail to tier on Server 2019 if Data Deduplication is enabled on the volume.

• Fixed a bug that can cause AFSDiag to fail to compress files if a file is larger than 2GiB.

More information about the Azure File Sync Agent v12 release

• This release is available for Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019 installations.

• A restart is required for servers that have an existing Azure File Sync agent installation.

• The agent version for this release is 12.0.0.0.

How to obtain and install the Azure File Sync Agent 

The Azure File Sync v12 release is currently being flighted to servers which are configured to automatically update when a new version becomes available. Once fighting completes, this update will be available on Microsoft Update and Microsoft Download Center. Flighting means the release is offered to a limited number of servers first and expands to more severs gradually. It may not be offered to your server right away even if it’s configured to automatically update when a new version becomes available. To immediately install the Azure File Sync v12 release, manually download the update from the Microsoft Update Catalog.

To learn more about Azure File Sync agent auto-update, see automatic agent lifecycle management.

To obtain and install this update, configure your Azure File Sync agent to automatically update when a new version becomes available or manually download the update from the Microsoft Update Catalog.