Create and manage SMB volumes

Last reviewed 2024-04-25 UTC

Before you can create and manage SMB volumes, you must review security considerations regarding SMB access. You must also add an Active Directory (AD) connection. Cloud Volumes Service supports one AD connection for each service type in a Google Cloud region. For more information, see Manage Active Directory connections.

The following diagram shows how Cloud Volumes Service works with Windows applications on Google Cloud:

Cloud Volumes Service Windows

For more information about SMB services provided by Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud, see SMB performance FAQs.

Create an SMB volume

Before you create an SMB volume, you must complete the steps to enable billing and APIs and create a Private Service Connection. Otherwise, the volume creation process fails.

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Volumes page.

    Go to the Volumes page

  2. Click Create.

  3. On the Create File System page, specify the name and options for your volume as indicated in the following table.

    Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

    Field Description CVS CVS-Performance
    Name* Name displayed for the volume.
    Billing Label

    Adds a label to the volume for billing reports and queries.
    Service Type*

    CVS or CVS-Performance service type.

    Each service type offers different service levels, and the service levels are offered in different regions. For details, see Service types.

    Replication Select to create volume as a destination target for volume replication. These volumes are read-only and aren't intended for active workloads.
    Region* Google Cloud region for your volume. For more information, see Best practices for Compute Engine region selection.
    Zone* Google Cloud zone for your volume.
    Volume Path* The system automatically generates a recommended volume path. The name must be unique across all of your cloud volumes.
    Service Level*
    • For the CVS service type, select the level of availability for the volume.
    • For the CVS-Performance service type, select the level of performance for the volume.
    Snapshot Allows you to create a volume based on a snapshot.
    Allocated Capacity* Size of the cloud volume. The minimum size is 1,024 GiB (1 TiB).
    Protocol Type* Select SMB.
    Make snapshot directory (~snapshot) visible Makes your snapshot directory visible to the client as a hidden ~snapshot directory in the root of the mapped share. Enables Previous Versions access in Windows Explorer.
    Enable SMB encryption Enables SMB encryption for in-flight SMB3 data. SMB clients using data without encryption can't access a volume that has this option enabled.
    Enable CA share support for SQL Server, FSLogix Enables continuously available (CA) share support for SQL Server and FSLogix. This option is only supported for these workloads.
    Hide SMB Share Enhances security by preventing your volume and data from being viewable by untrusted sources. Makes the SMB share non-browsable.
    Enable access-based enumeration (ABE) Provides additional security so that users see only the files and folders to which they have access permissions.

  4. In the Network Details section, specify the following:

    • Shared VPC Configuration: The VPC network can be part of a host project in a shared VPC network, or it can be a standalone project. If you have a host project and shared VPC topology, select Shared VPC configuration. For standalone projects, leave the box cleared.

    • VPC Network Name: Select the network from which the volume is accessible.

      If no VPCs appear, see the Cloud Volumes Service FAQ for how to view VPCs in the Cloud Volumes Service user interface.

    • If this is the first time that you're setting up the VPC network peering for Cloud Volumes Service, you receive the following prompt indicating that you need to set up network peering:

      Network peering warning window. The service networking peering for this VPC is not set up.

      Click the View commands how to set up network peering button. To configure VPC network peering, follow the steps in the dialog that appears.

      In the dialog, you can optionally select Use Custom Address Range. This option lets you, for example, specify a CIDR range that doesn’t overlap with your on-premises CIDR blocks. To allow for future flexibility, choose a larger CIDR block size (prefix range).

  5. To manage the snapshot policy for the volume, select the following settings:

    1. Expand Show snapshot policy.

    2. Select Allow automatic snapshots.

    3. Specify the snapshot schedules.

    4. specify the number of snapshots to keep.

    For details, see Create or modify a snapshot policy.

    Snapshot policy page

  6. Click Save to create the volume.

    The new volume appears in the Volumes list.

Map SMB shares from Compute Engine instances

Use the following instructions to map SMB shares from Compute Engine instances:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Volumes page.

    Go to the Volumes page

  2. Click the SMB volume for which you want to map an SMB share.

  3. Click More. , and then click Mount Instructions.

  4. Follow the instructions in the Mount Instructions for SMB window that appears.

    Create SMB instructions

If you need help resolving the server name in the share path (UNC path) to an IP address, see Why can't my client resolve the SMB NetBIOS name.

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