Native SMB3 on Amazon EFS — Windows files. Cloud simple.
Domain-joined Windows file shares with Active Directory, Windows ACLs, and Elastic SMB™ metadata acceleration — backed by Amazon EFS economics. Deploy in ~30 minutes with one-click CloudFormation.
Start evaluation — Single-AZ or Dual-AZ one-click CloudFormation
Why Roadrunner SMB
Windows file servers and VDI profile storage on AWS have traditionally meant over-provisioned capacity, painful login storms, or expensive managed services. Roadrunner SMB turns your existing Amazon EFS into a fully native SMB3 file service with Active Directory integration and Windows ACL semantics — without running Windows file servers or building Samba clusters yourself.
Key benefits
Native SMB3 + AD + ACLs on EFS
Domain-joined Windows file shares with Active Directory authentication and Windows ACL semantics on Amazon EFS.
Elastic SMB for login storms
Patent-pending Elastic SMB™ metadata caching keeps FSLogix and VDI profile traffic fast during login-heavy bursts.
1–4 node HA across AZs
Scale from a single evaluation node to a multi-AZ production cluster with NLB health checks and automatic failover.
Pay only for what you use
Hourly Marketplace billing for connected shares and mounted storage — pause or delete the stack to stop software charges.
Linux + Windows, one dataset
Standard files in EFS — Windows over SMB, Linux over NFS — without a second storage system.
Full data sovereignty
Everything runs in your AWS account on your EFS. Remove Roadrunner SMB anytime; your files stay in your account.
Paying too much for FSx for Windows®?
FSx for Windows® often means sizing for peak throughput and paying provisioned capacity even when storage sits idle. Mostly-inactive data is billed at full rate — while Roadrunner SMB on Amazon EFS® tracks real demand and benefits from EFS Infrequent Access for cold data.
- 40–60%Lower TCO for VDI at scale (10–50 TB) vs. FSx for Windows® — many teams see demand-following billing instead of a provisioned peak
For MSPs & AWS Partners
One MSP deployment can serve many clients. One AWS SA recommendation can unblock a stuck migration — without changing how you subscribe on Marketplace.
For MSPs
Deploy Roadrunner SMB per client in each client's own AWS account — full data sovereignty, no shared tenancy. Amazon EFS economics and Infrequent Access pricing cut per-client storage cost for large, mostly-inactive estates. Scale to zero on dev/test client stacks between engagements.
For AWS Solutions Architects
Storage cost is a common blocker on datacenter-to-AWS migration deals. Roadrunner SMB gives you an EFS-backed SMB option with Windows ACLs and Active Directory — a deal-enabler when FSx for Windows pricing stalls the conversation.
Running your own Windows file server?
Still running self-managed Windows file servers on EC2? Patching, clustering, and DFS-R failover are your job, not AWS's. Roadrunner SMB gives you the same domain-joined Windows experience — Active Directory, Windows ACLs, SMB3 — running on Amazon EFS instead, with HA and failover built in.
Already fighting Samba on EFS?
Built your own Samba or CTDB cluster for Windows access to Amazon EFS? You're not alone — it's a known rough edge AWS doesn't officially support. Roadrunner SMB replaces the DIY cluster with a maintained, HA-tested SMB3 layer on the same EFS data.
How it works
Subscribe and launch from AWS Marketplace — no container assembly required.
- Subscribe on AWS Marketplace
- Launch one-click CloudFormation into your VPC (Single-AZ or Dual-AZ)
- Configure First-Time Setup in the Admin UI (~15 min)
- Mount SMB shares from Windows — scale nodes as needed
Elastic SMB advantage
Patent-pending Elastic SMB™ L1 metadata caching delivers sub-10-microsecond metadata latency for FSLogix profiles and login-heavy VDI — absorbing login storms so throughput follows real demand instead of idle peak capacity.
Cost control you can trust
AWS + Roadrunner SMB hourly charges apply only while the cluster is running.
Scale the Auto Scaling Group to 0 (or terminate the rrsmb nodes) to pause service — RRSMB billing tracks offline time and charges nothing for shares or storage during that period. Ideal for weekends, holidays, or dev/test environments.
Delete the entire CloudFormation stack anytime to stop all charges permanently.
At a glance
By the numbers
- 40–60%Lower TCO for VDI at scale (10–50 TB) vs. FSx for Windows®
- 99.99%Production HA at scale with 3–4 nodes across AZs (2 nodes ≈99.9% minimum)
- <10 µsFast metadata for FSLogix and login-heavy VDI with Elastic SMB™ L1 cache
- ∞Elastic storage on Amazon EFS, SMB3 from Windows
I've spent my career at the file layer — as CTO at Citrix® bringing VDI to market, and as founder of SoftNAS® on AWS. Roadrunner SMB brings native SMB3, Active Directory, and Elastic SMB performance to the Amazon EFS foundation I'd choose for any file workload on AWS today.
Go deeper
Questions during evaluation? Support & troubleshooting →
Try Roadrunner SMB in 30 minutes or less
Subscribe on AWS Marketplace, launch the CloudFormation stack into your VPC, complete First-Time Setup in the Admin UI, and mount your first SMB share from Windows. Scale the ASG to 0 to pause with zero software charges — or delete the stack when you are done.