Datalake Storage Costs: OneLake vs Azure DFS/Blob

[Kayl669]

I've noticed that the per GB cost of OneLake storage is higher than pay-as-you-go hot tier Azure Blob storage - in GBP £0.0189 vs. £0.015 currently.

Given that you can create a shortcut to Azure Blob storage accounts and containers in Fabric, why would you choose to pay more for a less flexible service? I'm fairly new to Fabric and so am probably missing something. Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks!

[v-cboorla-msft]

Hi @Kayl669 

Thanks for using Microsoft Fabric Community.

Yes, its correct that per GB cost of OneLake storage is higher than pay-as-you-go hot tier Azure Blob storage. However, there are some key differences between the two services that might justify the additional cost for some use cases.

OneLake Advantages:

Simplicity: OneLake provides a single, unified data lake for your entire organization. This simplifies data management and eliminates the need to manage multiple Azure Data Lake Gen2 (ADLS Gen2) storage accounts.

Security & Data Governance: OneLake provides enterprise-grade security and compliance features, such as data encryption, access controls, and auditing. OneLake offers built-in security features that aren't available with Blob storage shortcuts. These features might be crucial for sensitive data. If you're working with sensitive data, the additional cost of OneLake might be justified by the enhanced security features. Fabric enforces data governance policies across your entire data lake, which can be helpful for maintaining compliance.

Azure Blob Storage Advantages:

Cost: Blob storage offers a lower per GB cost, making it a more economical option for storing large amounts of unstructured data that isn't accessed frequently (hot tier).

Flexibility: Blob storage offers more flexibility in terms of access control and integration with other Azure services. You can leverage features like SAS tokens or anonymous access, which aren't available in OneLake due to its security focus.

Choosing Between Them: The choice between OneLake and Azure Blob storage will depend on your specific use case and requirements. If you are looking for a more comprehensive data lake service with advanced features, OneLake might be the better choice. But if you are just looking for a cost-effective way to store data, Azure Blob storage could be the way to go.

For additional information please refer : OneLake vs ADLS Gen2: Full Feature Comparison (thatbluecloud.com)

I hope this information helps.

Thank you.

[v-cboorla-msft]

Hi @Kayl669 

We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet.
In case if you have any resolution please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others.
Otherwise, will respond back with the more details and we will try to help.

Thank you.

[v-cboorla-msft]

Hi @Kayl669 

We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. In case if you have any resolution please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others. If you have any question relating to the current thread, please do let us know and we will try out best to help you. In case if you have any other question on a different issue, we request you to open a new thread.

Thank you.

[Kayl669]

I just tried setting up an external lakehouse delta table as a Fabric eventstream sink and the data doesn't flow into the table in the way it does if you use a managed AKA OneLake table. A new entity gets created in the lakehouse with the same name as the desired destination table and isn't recognisable as a table 🤔