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Connect to a shared/network drive (without pc on)

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Posted on by StaticFX

I was wondering if there is a way to connect to a shared drive without the pc being on..

Basically right now we are just using a .bat file with xcopy to move some files from A to B.. problem is that this is on a users machine.. so the machine has to stay on. Is there a way to use PA to copy from a shared drive \\drive\folder to another location so we dont have to have the pc on 24/7!?

Thanks!

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lbendlin 8,715 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Yes but there are limits. network flow copy operations can only handle messages/files up to 100MiB in size.

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StaticFX 29 on at

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thats fine, but how do I do it?

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lbendlin 8,715 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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You create an online flow (scheduled or triggered) that performs the required operations?

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StaticFX 29 on at

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... how do you connect it to a shared drive, but not have to leave the PC on? I know you can create a local connector on your PC... but thats not an option. Is there something I am missing?

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lbendlin 8,715 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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we are talking about cloud flows here, right? They don't need a PC to be on. Unless your file share is on that PC?

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StaticFX 29 on at

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how can a cloud flow connect to a network drive .. the connector is installed on the local PC isnt it?

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lbendlin 8,715 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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either your network drive is in the public cloud, or you use a gateway.

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StaticFX 29 on at

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yeah when I try to create a connection to the share \\drive\folder .. it wants a gateway. Thats where I am stuck.. our shared is on a cloud, but what connector do you use? the filesystem one wants a gateway...

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lbendlin 8,715 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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That is expected behavior. A gateway is required if the Azure service needs help seeing the on-premise data source (your file share , in this case). There's no magic involved here that would somehow allow you to avoid that.

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StaticFX 29 on at

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right, but isnt the gateaway on my PC? so my pc would need to stay on? or am I being stupid? lol (dont answer that)

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