Choosing the account type
When you create a storage account, the first real decision is the type. It sets which services are available, what the hardware is, and what you pay.
Standard general-purpose v2
This is the default and the right choice for most workloads. It supports blobs, files, queues and tables, uses hard-disk-based storage, and lets you choose from all the redundancy options and access tiers. Use it unless you have a reason not to.
Premium accounts
Premium accounts use solid-state storage for low and steady latency. Each premium type serves one purpose:
- Premium block blobs for workloads with many small, fast operations, such as analytics and some applications.
- Premium file shares for Azure Files shares that need high performance, such as databases on file shares or busy profile stores.
- Premium page blobs for unmanaged virtual machine disks. New projects should use managed disks instead.
Premium accounts cost more per gigabyte, and they offer fewer redundancy options (locally redundant or zone redundant, but not geo-redundant).
Other choices on the Basics tab
- Region. Place the account near the people or systems that use it, and check any rules on where the data may be held.
- Performance. Standard or Premium, as above.
- Redundancy. Tomorrow's lesson.
- Default access tier. Hot for data that is read often, or Cool for data that is read rarely. You can change the tier for individual blobs later.
Hierarchical namespace
On the Advanced tab you can turn on a hierarchical namespace. This turns the account into Azure Data Lake Storage, with real folders and folder permissions. It is meant for analytics workloads. Turn it on only when you need it, because some features behave differently on such accounts.
A simple rule of thumb
- Use Standard general-purpose v2 for backups, archives, file shares with ordinary needs and general blob storage.
- Use Premium only when you have measured a latency or throughput need that Standard cannot meet.
- Do not mix very different workloads in one account. Separate accounts make it easier to apply network rules, permissions and cost tracking to each purpose.
Today's task
List the storage accounts in your subscription and note the type, redundancy and default tier of each:
Get-AzStorageAccount | Select-Object StorageAccountName, Kind, @{n='Sku';e={$_.Sku.Name}}, AccessTier, Location