Azure File Storage enables you to present an Azure Storage Account to your IaaS VMs as a share using SMB. You can fid out further details here

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-files/ 

Once you have created your Azure File Storage Account and connected your Azure Virtual Machines to it, you may need to upload data from your premises into the storage to enable it to be accessed by the Virtual Machines

To accomplish this I wrote a function and called it Upload-ToAzureFileStorage

I started by creating a source folder and files to test

New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New2 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New3 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New4 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New5 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\b -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\c -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\d -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\1 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\2 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\3 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\4 -ItemType Directory
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New2\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New3\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New4\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New5\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\1\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\2\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\3\file.txt -ItemType File
New-Item -Path C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\4\file.txt -ItemType File

Then we needed to connect to the subscription, get the storage account access key and create a context to store them

#Select Azure Subscription
Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $AzureSubscriptionName
# Get the Storage Account Key
$StorageAccountKey = (Get-AzureStorageKey -StorageAccountName $StorageAccountName).Primary
# create a context for account and key
$ctx=New-AzureStorageContext $StorageAccountName $StorageAccountKey

The Get-AzureStorageShare  cmdlet shows the shares available for the context so we can check if the share exists

$S = Get-AzureStorageShare -Context $ctx -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue|Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $AzureShare}

and if it doesnt exist create it using New-AzureStorageShare

$s = New-AzureStorageShare $AzureShare -Context $ctx

For the sake only of doing it a different way we can check for existence of the directory in Azure File Storage that we are going to upload the files to like this

$d = Get-AzureStorageFile -Share $s -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue|select Name
if ($d.Name -notcontains $AzureDirectory)

and if it doesnt exist create it using New-AzureStorageDirectory

$d = New-AzureStorageDirectory -Share $s -Path $AzureDirectory

Now that we have the directory created in the storage account we need to create any subfolders. First get the folders

# get all the folders in the source directory
$Folders = Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Directory -Recurse

We can then iterate through them using a foreach loop. If we do this and select the FullName property the results will be

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1

C:\temp\TestUpload\New2

C:\temp\TestUpload\New3

C:\temp\TestUpload\New4

C:\temp\TestUpload\New5

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\b

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\c

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\d

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\1

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\2

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\3

C:\temp\TestUpload\New1\list\a\4

but to create new folders we need to remove the “C:\temp\TestUpload” and replace it with the Directory name in Azure. I chose to do this as follows using the substring method and the length of the source folder path.

foreach($Folder in $Folders)
 {
 $f = ($Folder.FullName).Substring(($source.Length))
 $Path = $AzureDirectory + $f

and tested that the results came out as I wanted

AppName\New1

AppName\New2

AppName\New3

AppName\New4

AppName\New5

AppName\New1\list

AppName\New1\list\a

AppName\New1\list\b

AppName\New1\list\c

AppName\New1\list\d

AppName\New1\list\a\1

AppName\New1\list\a\2

AppName\New1\list\a\3

AppName\New1\list\a\4

I could then create the new folders in azure using New-AzureStorageDirectory again

New-AzureStorageDirectory -Share $s -Path $Path -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

I followed the same process with the files

$files = Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Recurse -File</pre>
<pre>foreach($File in $Files)
 {
 $f = ($file.FullName).Substring(($Source.Length))
 $Path = $AzureDirectory + $f

and then created the files using Set-AzureStorageFileContent this has a -Force and a -Confirm switch and I added those into my function by using a [switch] Parameter

#upload the files to the storage
 if($Confirm)
 {
 Set-AzureStorageFileContent -Share $s -Source $File.FullName -Path $Path -Confirm
 }
 else
 {
 Set-AzureStorageFileContent -Share $s -Source $File.FullName -Path $Path -Force
 }

You can download the function from the Script Center

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Recursively-upload-a-bfb615fe

As also, any comments or queries are welcome and obviously the internet lies so please understand and test all code you find before using it in production