Managed Disks Overview - Azure Storage Documentation

Introduction to Azure Managed Disks

Azure Managed Disks is a feature that simplifies storage account management for Azure Virtual Machines. It offers high-performance, reliable, and scalable storage options for your VM workloads.

Instead of managing storage accounts, you now manage individual disks. Azure handles the availability, patching, and underlying infrastructure for you.

What are Managed Disks?

Managed Disks are block-level storage volumes that Azure uses for Azure VMs. They are essentially virtual hard drives.

With Managed Disks, you only need to manage the disks themselves. Azure automatically handles:

Storage account creation and management
Availability and redundancy of data
Disk encryption at rest
Integration with Azure Backup and Site Recovery

This abstraction layer significantly reduces the operational overhead associated with managing VM storage.

Key Features of Managed Disks

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Simplified Management

No need to manage storage accounts. Focus on your VMs and their disks.

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High Availability

Designed for 99.999% availability with built-in redundancy.

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Encryption

Supports encryption at rest with platform-managed or customer-managed keys.

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Performance Options

Choose from various disk types to match your performance requirements.

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Resiliency

Built-in resiliency to protect your data from hardware failures.

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Scalability

Easily scale disk size and performance as your needs grow.

Managed Disk Types

Azure Managed Disks offer several types to suit different performance and cost requirements:

Ultra Disk

Best for: Mission-critical, I/O-intensive workloads requiring consistent, low-latency performance.

Highest performance and scalability.
Up to 128,000 IOPS and 2,000 MB/s throughput.
Configurable performance (IOPS and throughput) independent of capacity.

Premium SSD

Best for: Production and development workloads requiring high performance and low latency.

High throughput and IOPS with consistent low latency.
Ideal for most production applications, including databases and web servers.
Performance scales with disk size.

Standard SSD

Best for: Workloads that require consistent latency at an affordable price.

Consistent latency and better performance than Standard HDD.
Good for dev/test, low-criticality production, and some web servers.

Standard HDD

Best for: Workloads that are not performance-sensitive and require the lowest cost.

Lowest cost, suitable for backups, non-critical data, and large archives.
Higher latency and lower IOPS compared to SSDs.

Common Use Cases

Boot Disks: The operating system disk for your Azure VMs.
Data Disks: Used to store application data, databases, logs, and more.
High-Performance Databases: Utilize Ultra Disks or Premium SSDs for SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc.
Web Servers and Application Tiers: Deploy robust and scalable web applications.
Dev/Test Environments: Cost-effective Standard SSDs or HDDs for development and testing.
Big Data and Analytics: High-throughput disks for processing large datasets.

Benefits of Using Managed Disks

Operational Simplicity: Reduces management overhead by abstracting storage accounts.
Improved Availability: Redundant storage ensures high uptime for your VMs.
Enhanced Security: Built-in encryption at rest protects your data.
Flexible Performance: Choose the right disk type for your specific workload needs.
Seamless Integration: Works seamlessly with Azure Backup, Site Recovery, and other Azure services.
Cost Optimization: Various disk types allow you to balance performance and cost effectively.

Getting Started with Managed Disks

You can create and attach Managed Disks to your Azure VMs through the Azure portal, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, or ARM templates.

Azure Portal

When creating a new Azure VM, you can select Managed Disks as the storage option. You can also create standalone disks and attach them to existing VMs.

Azure CLI Example

az vm disk attach \
    --resource-group MyResourceGroup \
    --vm-name MyVM \
    --name MyDiskName \
    --new \
    --size-gb 128 \
    --sku Premium_LRS

Refer to the "How-to" guides for detailed instructions.

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