📖 What is Azure Disk Storage?
Azure Disk Storage provides high-performance, durable block-level storage volumes that can be attached to Azure Virtual Machines. It offers various tiers, such as Standard HDD, Standard SSD, and Premium SSD, to meet different performance and cost requirements.
"This is essentially the hard drive for your VM; remember that it is block storage, not file or object storage."
📚 Certification: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)
🔑 What are the Key Concepts of Azure Disk Storage?
- ▸ Block-level storage provides the raw capacity needed for operating systems and databases, functioning like a physical hard drive attached to a virtual machine.
- ▸ Storage tiers include Standard HDD for backups, Standard SSD for light workloads, and Premium SSD for high-performance production environments.
- ▸ Managed Disks simplify administration by removing the need to manage storage accounts, allowing Azure to handle scaling and availability automatically.
- ▸ Azure Disks are categorized into OS disks, used for booting the VM, and Data disks, used for storing application and user data.
- ▸ Data durability is ensured through options like Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) and Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS) to protect against hardware failure.
🎯 How does Azure Disk Storage appear on the AZ-900 Exam?
You may be asked to recommend a storage tier for a specific workload, such as choosing Premium SSD for a high-performance production database or Standard HDD for low-cost, infrequent backups.
A scenario might describe a need for a bootable drive for a new Virtual Machine; you must identify Azure Disk Storage as the correct block-level solution rather than file or object storage.
Expect questions that require you to distinguish between Azure Disk, Azure Files, and Blob storage based on whether the requirement is for a VM's internal drive or a shared network folder.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary difference between Managed and Unmanaged disks?
Managed Disks are the modern standard where Azure handles the underlying storage account. This removes the manual overhead of creating storage accounts and prevents the risk of deleting the account while disks are still in use.
When should I choose Premium SSD over Standard SSD?
Premium SSDs are designed for I/O intensive workloads, providing consistent low latency and high throughput. Standard SSDs are better for web servers or light applications where cost is a bigger factor than peak performance.