Blob Storage overview
Azure Blob Storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. Blob storage is optimized to store massive amounts of unstructured data, such as text or binary data.
Unstructured data is data that doesn't adhere to a particular data model or definition, such as text or binary files. The three types of Blob storage that are available to store and manage different kinds of data are:
- Block blobs: Optimized for storing massive amounts of unstructured data. A block blob consists of blocks, and each block can be a different size.
- Append blobs: Optimized for append operations, such as writing to a log file. A block blob consists of blocks, and each block can be a different size.
- Page blobs: Optimized for random read and write operations. Page blobs are used to store virtual machine disk data.
Note: Data in Azure Storage is always encrypted by Microsoft. You can control the keys used for encryption with either Microsoft-managed keys or your own customer-managed keys.
Key Concepts
To understand Blob storage, you should be familiar with the following key concepts:
- Storage Account: All objects in Azure Storage are organized within a storage account. A storage account provides a unique namespace for your Azure Storage data that is accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS.
- Container: A container is a logical grouping of a set of blobs. You can think of a container as a directory in a file system.
- Blob: A blob is the most optimized form of storage for objects in the cloud. Any amount of text or binary data can be stored in a blob.
Container and Blob Naming Rules
When you name a container or a blob, you must follow these naming conventions:
- Container names must be 3 to 63 characters long and contain only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.
- Blob names must be 1 to 1,024 characters long and can be case-sensitive.
Use Cases
Blob storage can be used for a variety of scenarios, including:
- Serving images or documents directly to a browser.
- Storing files for distributed access.
- Streaming video and audio.
- Writing to log files.
- Storing data for backup and restore, disaster recovery, and archival.
- Storing data for analysis by an on-premises or Azure-hosted service.
Blob Access Tiers
Azure Blob Storage offers different access tiers to optimize costs based on how frequently data is accessed:
- Hot tier: Optimized for frequently accessed data.
- Cool tier: Optimized for data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 days.
- Archive tier: Optimized for rarely accessed data that is stored for at least 180 days with flexible latency requirements.
| Tier | Access Frequency | Storage Cost | Access Cost | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | High | Highest | Lowest | High |
| Cool | Infrequent | Medium | Medium | High |
| Archive | Rare | Lowest | Highest | Low |
Getting Started
To get started with Azure Blob Storage:
- Create an Azure Storage account in the Azure portal.
- Create a container within your storage account.
- Upload blobs to your container using the Azure portal, Azure Storage Explorer, or the Azure SDKs.
Important: For production workloads, consider using tools like Azure Storage Explorer or the Azure CLI for managing your storage accounts and data.
For more in-depth information, please refer to the Blob Storage Introduction.