What does Azure Data Lake Storage (Gen 2) primarily enhance over Azure Blob Storage?

Azure Data Lake Storage (Gen 2) enhances the capabilities of Azure Blob Storage primarily by offering support for a hierarchical file system. This feature enables users to create directories and subdirectories, which allows for better organization of data compared to the flat namespace of traditional Blob Storage.

The hierarchical structure facilitates more efficient data management, particularly when dealing with complex datasets that require organization into logical groupings. This structure aligns well with typical data analytics workflows, where data is often organized based on project or data type. It provides the flexibility of filesystem semantics such as directory-level permissions, which can enhance both security and access control when working with large volumes of data.

The other options, while important aspects of storage solutions, do not specifically highlight the key feature that distinguishes Azure Data Lake Storage (Gen 2) from Azure Blob Storage in terms of functionality and user experience. For instance, cost efficiency, while a consideration within Azure services, is not exclusively tied to the hierarchical nature of the data storage. Similarly, storage redundancy and data encryption are features that can be found in both Azure Blob Storage and Azure Data Lake Storage, making them non-distinctive when comparing the two.