Create an Azure Storage Account

This guide will walk you through the process of creating a new Azure Storage account, which is the foundation for storing your blob data in Azure.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have an active Azure subscription. If you don't have one, you can create a free account.

Steps to Create a Storage Account

1

Navigate to the Azure portal. You can access it at https://portal.azure.com/.

2

In the Azure portal, select Create a resource from the left-hand menu or click the + Create a resource button on the home page.

3

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

Click Create.

4

On the Basics tab, configure the following settings:

  • Subscription: Select your Azure subscription.
  • Resource group: Choose an existing resource group or click Create new to create a new one. Resource groups help you manage related 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 contain only lowercase letters and numbers.
  • Region: Select the Azure region where you want to deploy your storage account. Choose a region that is geographically close to your users or applications for better performance.
  • Performance: Select Standard for general-purpose v2 accounts or Premium for scenarios requiring low latency and high throughput.
  • Redundancy: Choose your desired data redundancy option. Options include Locally-redundant storage (LRS), Geo-redundant storage (GRS), Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS), Zone-redundant storage (ZRS), and Geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS).
5

Click on the Advanced tab. Here you can configure additional settings such as:

  • Blob access tier: Set the default access tier for blobs (Hot or Cool).
  • Data Lake Storage Gen2: Enable this if you plan to use your storage account for big data analytics.
6

Review the settings on the Review + create tab. If everything looks correct, click Create.

Azure will now deploy your storage account. This process may take a few minutes. Once deployment is complete, you will receive a notification.

Accessing Your Storage Account

After your storage account is created:

  1. Navigate to your storage account resource in the Azure portal.
  2. In the left-hand menu, under the Data storage section, select Containers to create and manage your blob containers.
  3. To access your storage account programmatically, you will need your storage account name and one of its access keys. You can find these under the Access keys section of your storage account.
Security Best Practice

It's recommended to use Shared Access Signatures (SAS) or Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for granting access to your storage account data instead of directly using account keys for applications.

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