# Create an SMB file share
<a name="create-smb-file-share"></a>

The Server Message Block (SMB) protocol is deeply integrated into the Microsoft Windows product suite, and remains the default file sharing protocol for Windows operating systems. The process of client-server communication is similar to NFS at a high level, but there are differences in some details and operational mechanisms. For example, in SMB, file systems are not mounted on the local SMB client. Instead, a network share hosted on the SMB server is accessed via a network path. 

The topics in this section explain various methods for creating an SMB file share for your File Gateway.

**Contents**
+ [Create an SMB file share using the default configuration](smb-fileshare-quickstart-settings.md)
  + [Default configuration settings for SMB file shares](smb-fileshare-quickstart-settings.md#quickstart-default-settings)
+ [Create an SMB file share with a custom configuration](CreatingAnSMBFileShare.md)