Documentation / Azure Storage / Blob Storage / Create Storage Account

Create an Azure Storage Account for Blobs

This guide walks you through the process of creating a new Azure Storage account, which is the fundamental service for storing your data in Azure. A storage account provides a unique namespace for your Azure Storage data that is accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS. Blobs can be accessed via REST API, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, or Azure Storage client libraries.

Important: A storage account is required before you can create containers and store blobs.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have an active Azure subscription. If you don't have one, you can create a free account with 12 months of popular free services, plus $200 credit to use in your first 30 days.

Create a free account

Steps to Create a Storage Account

1. Navigate to the Azure Portal

Sign in to the Azure portal.

The Azure portal is a web-based tool that allows you to manage your Azure resources.

2. Create a Storage Account Resource

In the Azure portal, search for "Storage accounts" and select it from the results.

Click the + Create button to start the storage account creation process.

Azure portal create storage account button

3. Configure Basic Settings

On the Basics tab, you'll configure the following:

  • Subscription: Select the Azure subscription under which to create the storage account.
  • Resource group: Choose an existing resource group or create a new one. Resource groups help you organize and manage related Azure resources.
  • Storage account name: Enter a globally unique name for your storage account. This name will be part of the URL for accessing your storage resources (e.g., mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net). The name must be 3-24 characters long and can contain only lowercase letters and numbers.
  • Region: Select the Azure region where you want to deploy your storage account. Choose a region close to your users or other Azure services for better performance.
  • Performance: Select either Standard (for general-purpose v2 accounts) or Premium (for specialized workloads). For most blob storage needs, Standard is sufficient.
  • Redundancy: Choose your desired data redundancy option. Common options include:
    • Locally-redundant storage (LRS): The cheapest option, replicates data within a single data center.
    • Geo-redundant storage (GRS): Replicates data to a secondary region for disaster recovery.
    • Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS): Similar to GRS but allows read access to the secondary region.

4. Configure Advanced Settings (Optional)

The Advanced tab allows you to configure settings like:

  • Networking: Configure public access, private endpoints, and firewall rules.
  • Data protection: Enable soft delete, versioning, and point-in-time restore.
  • Encryption: Configure encryption settings.
  • Blob storage: Enable hierarchical namespaces for Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2.

For most basic use cases, the default advanced settings are acceptable. You can always modify these settings later.

5. Review and Create

After configuring the settings, click the Review + create button.

Azure will validate your configuration. Once validation passes, click the Create button to provision your storage account.

Azure portal review and create button

6. Deployment and Access

The deployment process typically takes a few minutes. Once completed, you can navigate to your storage account resource.

From the storage account's overview page, you can access:

  • Containers: Create and manage containers to organize your blobs.
  • Access keys: Retrieve connection strings and keys for programmatic access.
  • Endpoints: Find the primary endpoints for Blob, File, Queue, and Table services.

Example using Azure CLI

You can also create a storage account using the Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI). Ensure you have Azure CLI installed and are logged in to your Azure account.


az storage account create \
    --name mystorageaccountname \
    --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
    --location eastus \
    --sku Standard_LRS \
    --kind StorageV2
Tip: Replace mystorageaccountname and MyResourceGroup with your desired names. The --kind StorageV2 specifies a general-purpose v2 account, which is recommended for most scenarios.

Next Steps

Now that you have a storage account, you can start creating containers and uploading your data: