topic Re: Does the free version of Databricks not support external storage data sources? in Data Engineering

Does the free version of Databricks not support external storage data sources?

yinan — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:31:32 GMT

1、Can the data I use with the free version of Databricks on Azure only be stored on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Storage?

2、Assuming the network is connected, can the paid version be used to access other publicly stored data (i.e., custom storage spaces)?

Re: Does the free version of Databricks not support external storage data sources?

szymon_dybczak — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:50:56 GMT

Hi @yinan ,

1. Nope, custom storage locations are not supported.

Databricks Free Edition limitations | Databricks on AWS

2. Yes, in paid version you can do configure external locations to other storage spaces.

Re: Does the free version of Databricks not support external storage data sources?

yinan — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:56:48 GMT

Thank you very much.

Re: Does the free version of Databricks not support external storage data sources?

szymon_dybczak — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 14:58:31 GMT

No problem @yinan . Glad that I could help. And if my answer was helpful to you, please consider marking it as best answer. This way others with similiar question will be able to locate correct answer faster

Re: Does the free version of Databricks not support external storage data sources?

BS_THE_ANALYST — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 15:17:17 GMT

Not sure if this is a cheeky way to get around bringing files in: https://community.databricks.com/t5/data-engineering/connect-to-azure-data-lake-storage-using-databricks-free-edition/m-p/127900#M48116 but I answered a similar thing on a different post.

@yinan I think this can technically work but it's certainly not the usual way to connect to External Storage 🙂. Involves authenticating etc using Python libraries, bringing the files in through blob, converting them in memory etc. Once it's in memory, you'd be able to do typical writing operations, I believe.

All the best,
BS