Create Azure Blob Storage

This guide walks you through the process of creating a new Azure Blob Storage account. Blob storage is a massively scalable object store for unstructured data such as text or binary data. You can use blob storage to serve images or documents directly to a browser, store files for distributed access, stream video and audio, write to log files for auditing and analysis, and more.

Prerequisites

An active Azure subscription. If you don't have one, you can create a free account.
Permissions to create resources in your subscription.

Steps to Create Blob Storage

Sign in to the Azure Portal

Open your web browser and navigate to the Azure portal. Sign in with your Azure account credentials.

Create a Resource

In the Azure portal, click on the Create a resource button (represented by a '+') located on the top-left corner of the portal.

Search for Storage Account

In the search bar, type "Storage account" and select Storage account from the search results.

Configure Storage Account Settings

Click the Create button. You will be presented with a form to configure your new storage account. Fill in the following details:

Subscription: Select the Azure subscription you want to use.
Resource group: Choose an existing resource group or create a new one. Resource groups help you manage Azure resources.
Storage account name: Enter a globally unique name for your storage account. This name must be between 3 and 24 characters and can only contain lowercase letters and numbers.
Region: Select the Azure region closest to your users for better performance.
Performance: Choose between Standard (for general-purpose v2 accounts) or Premium (for lower latency and higher throughput). For most use cases, Standard is sufficient.
Redundancy: Select the data redundancy option that best suits your needs (e.g., Locally-redundant storage (LRS), Geo-redundant storage (GRS)).

For detailed information on redundancy options, refer to the Azure Storage redundancy documentation.

Advanced Settings (Optional)

Navigate to the Advanced tab. Here you can configure options like Hierarchical namespace (for Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2), networking, and access tier.

Hierarchical namespace: Enable this if you plan to use your storage account as a data lake.
Networking: Configure public access or private endpoints.
Access tier: Set the default access tier for blobs (Hot, Cool, Archive).

Review and Create

Click the Review + create button. Azure will validate your configuration. Once validation passes, review the summary and click Create.

Deployment

Azure will now provision your storage account. This process typically takes a few minutes. You can monitor the deployment progress in the Azure portal.

Access Your Storage Account

Once the deployment is complete, navigate to your storage account resource. From here, you can access your blob containers, manage access keys, and configure other settings.

To start storing data, you'll need to create a container within your storage account.

                        
// Example: Creating a blob container using Azure CLI
az storage container create --name mycontainer --account-name mystorageaccountname --auth-mode login

Or, you can use the Azure portal to create containers by navigating to your storage account and selecting 'Containers' under 'Data storage'.

Next Steps

Learn how to upload blobs to your new storage account.
Explore different blob management techniques.
Understand access control and security for your storage account.