Managed Disks SKU Reference

This document provides a comprehensive reference for Azure Managed Disks Stock Keeping Units (SKUs). Understanding these SKUs is crucial for selecting the appropriate disk type for your virtual machines, balancing performance, cost, and availability requirements.

SKU Tiers and Types

Azure Managed Disks offer several tiers, each with different performance characteristics and cost implications:

Standard HDD: Cost-effective, suitable for dev/test, backup, and non-critical workloads.
Standard SSD: Balanced cost and performance, suitable for web servers, lightly-trafficked applications, and dev/test.
Premium SSD: High performance, low latency, suitable for production and performance-sensitive workloads.
Ultra Disk: Highest performance, configurable IOPS and throughput, suitable for mission-critical, I/O-intensive applications like SAP HANA and top-tier databases.

SKU Details

The following table summarizes the key attributes of each Managed Disk SKU. Note that availability may vary by Azure region.

SKU Name	Disk Type	Max IOPS	Max Throughput (MB/s)	Cache Support	Typical Use Cases	Availability
`Standard_LRS`	Standard HDD	500	200	None	Dev/test, backup, archival, infrequent access	All regions
`StandardSSD_LRS`	Standard SSD	600	200	Host Cache (Read-only)	Web servers, lightly-trafficked applications, dev/test	All regions
`Premium_LRS`	Premium SSD	5,000 (for P1-P11) 20,000 (for P15-P20)	200 (for P1-P11) 900 (for P15-P20)	Host Cache (Read/Write)	Production applications, databases, high-performance workloads	All regions
`Premium_ZRS`	Premium SSD (Zone-Redundant)	5,000 (for P1-P11) 20,000 (for P15-P20)	200 (for P1-P11) 900 (for P15-P20)	Host Cache (Read/Write)	High availability production workloads requiring zone resilience	Regions with ZRS support
`UltraSSD_LRS`	Ultra Disk	160,000 (configurable)	2,000 (configurable)	Host Cache (Read/Write)	Mission-critical I/O-intensive applications (SAP HANA, top-tier databases)	Regions with Ultra Disk support

Key Considerations

IOPS and Throughput Scaling: For Premium SSD and Ultra Disk, IOPS and throughput scale with disk size. Refer to Azure documentation for specific size-to-performance mappings.
Host Caching: Premium and Ultra disks support host caching for improved read performance. Standard SSD has read-only caching.
Redundancy: LRS (Locally Redundant Storage) offers data replication within a single data center. ZRS (Zone-Redundant Storage) replicates data across multiple Availability Zones within a region for higher availability.
Pricing: Pricing varies significantly by SKU, size, and region. Consult the Azure Pricing Calculator for detailed cost estimates.
Maximum Disk Sizes: Each SKU has associated maximum disk sizes. For instance, Ultra Disks can be provisioned up to 128 TiB.

Important Note

The performance metrics (IOPS and Throughput) listed are maximums per disk. The actual performance experienced by a VM depends on the VM size, the number of disks attached, and the workload. For detailed performance guidelines, please refer to the Managed Disks Performance Tiers documentation.

Tip

When migrating workloads, it's recommended to start with a performance tier that meets your current needs and monitor performance. You can then scale up or down as required. Ultra Disks are ideal for highly demanding applications where predictable and extremely high performance is a strict requirement.

Azure Managed Disks SKU Reference