Azure Storage Accounts

Documentation for Storage Account Disks

Understanding Azure Managed Disks

Azure Managed Disks are a robust and scalable storage solution for Azure Virtual Machines. They offer improved reliability, performance, and ease of management compared to unmanaged disks.

Key Benefit: Managed Disks abstract away the underlying storage account management, simplifying disk operations and reducing operational overhead.

Types of Managed Disks

Azure offers several types of managed disks to suit different workload requirements:

  • Ultra Disk: For mission-critical workloads requiring ultra-high performance and low latency.
  • Premium SSD: For I/O-intensive production workloads that require consistent, low-latency performance.
  • Standard SSD: For workloads that require consistent performance at an infrequent tier, like dev/test environments or smaller production workloads.
  • Standard HDD: For backup, disaster recovery, and less frequently accessed data where throughput is not a primary concern.

Creating Managed Disks

You can create managed disks using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, PowerShell, or ARM templates. When creating a disk, you'll specify its type, size, and performance characteristics (for Premium SSD and Ultra Disks).


az disk create --resource-group MyResourceGroup --name MyDisk --size-gb 128 --sku Premium_LRS

Managing Managed Disks

Managed disks can be attached to and detached from virtual machines. You can also snapshot disks, create new disks from snapshots, and resize existing disks.

Attaching a Disk

To attach a managed disk to a VM:

  1. Navigate to your Virtual Machine resource in the Azure portal.
  2. Under "Disks", click "Attach existing disks".
  3. Select the managed disk you wish to attach.

Snapshotting a Disk

Creating a snapshot is a crucial step for backups and disaster recovery.


New-AzSnapshotConfig -SourceDiskId "/subscriptions/your-subscription-id/resourceGroups/your-resource-group/providers/Microsoft.Compute/disks/your-disk-name" -CreateOption Copy
New-AzSnapshot -SnapshotName "MySnapshot" -ResourceGroupName "MyResourceGroup" -Location "East US" -Snapshot $snapshotConfig

Performance Considerations

Disk performance is measured in IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) and throughput (MBps). Each disk type offers different performance tiers. For Premium SSDs and Ultra Disks, you can further fine-tune performance by adjusting provisioned IOPS and throughput.

Security

Managed Disks support encryption at rest using Azure Storage Service Encryption. You can choose to use platform-managed keys or customer-managed keys for enhanced control.

Pricing

Pricing for managed disks is based on the disk type, provisioned size, and provisioned performance (for Premium SSD and Ultra Disks). For detailed pricing information, please refer to the Azure Disk Storage pricing page.