Azure Storage is the managed cloud storage service offered in Microsoft Azure. Azure Storage provides a highly available, durable, scalable, and redundant storage service. Azure Storage platform includes data services like Azure Blobs, Azure Files, Azure Queues, Azure Tables, and Azure Disks.
To access any of these services from an application, you have to create an Azure Storage Account. The storage account provides a unique namespace for your Azure Storage data that is accessible from anywhere in the world over HTTP or HTTPS. An Azure storage account contains all of your Azure Storage data objects: blobs, files, queues, tables, and disks.
Azure Storage offers several types of storage accounts. Each type supports different features and has its own pricing model. Consider these differences before you create a storage account to determine the type of account that is best for your applications. The types of storage accounts are:
- General-purpose v2 accounts: Basic storage account type for blobs, files, queues, and tables. Recommended for most scenarios using Azure Storage.
- General-purpose v1 accounts: Legacy account type for blobs, files, queues, and tables. Use general-purpose v2 accounts instead when possible.
- BlockBlobStorage accounts: Storage accounts with premium performance characteristics for block blobs and append blobs. Recommended for scenarios with high transactions rates, or scenarios that use smaller objects or require consistently low storage latency.
- FileStorage accounts: Files-only storage accounts with premium performance characteristics. Recommended for enterprise or high performance scale applications.
- BlobStorage accounts: Legacy Blob-only storage accounts. Use general-purpose v2 accounts instead when possible.
General-purpose v2 accounts
General-purpose v2 storage accounts support the latest Azure Storage features and incorporate all of the functionality of general-purpose v1 and Blob storage accounts. General-purpose v2 accounts deliver the lowest per-gigabyte capacity prices for Azure Storage, as well as industry-competitive transaction prices. General-purpose v2 storage accounts support these Azure Storage services:
- Blobs (all types: Block, Append, Page)
- Data Lake Gen2
- Files
- Disks
- Queues
- Tables
General-purpose v2 storage accounts offer multiple access tiers for storing data based on your usage patterns. For more information, see Access tiers for block blob data.
General-purpose v1 accounts
General-purpose v1 storage accounts provide access to all Azure Storage services, but may not have the latest features or the lowest per gigabyte pricing. General-purpose v1 storage accounts support these Azure Storage services:
- Blobs (all types)
- Files
- Disks
- Queues
- Tables
You should use general-purpose v2 accounts in most cases. You can use general-purpose v1 accounts for these scenarios:
- Your applications require the Azure classic deployment model. General-purpose v2 accounts and Blob storage accounts support only the Azure Resource Manager deployment model.
- Your applications are transaction-intensive or use significant geo-replication bandwidth, but don’t require large capacity. In this case, general-purpose v1 may be the most economical choice.
- You use a version of the Storage Services REST API that is earlier than 2014-02-14 or a client library with a version lower than 4.x. You can’t upgrade your application.
BlockBlobStorage accounts
A BlockBlobStorage account is a specialized storage account in the premium performance tier for storing unstructured object data as block blobs or append blobs. Compared with general-purpose v2 and BlobStorage accounts, BlockBlobStorage accounts provide low, consistent latency and higher transaction rates.
BlockBlobStorage accounts don’t currently support tiering to hot, cool, or archive access tiers. This type of storage account does not support page blobs, tables, or queues.
FileStorage accounts
A FileStorage account is a specialized storage account used to store and create premium file shares. This storage account kind supports files but not block blobs, append blobs, page blobs, tables, or queues.
FileStorage accounts offer unique performance dedicated characteristics such as IOPS bursting. For more information on these characteristics, see the File share storage tiers section of the Files planning guide.
Access tiers for block blob data
Azure Storage provides different options for accessing block blob data based on usage patterns. Each access tier in Azure Storage is optimized for a particular pattern of data usage. By selecting the right access tier for your needs, you can store your block blob data in the most cost-effective manner.
The available access tiers are:
- The Hot access tier. This tier is optimized for frequent access of objects in the storage account. Accessing data in the hot tier is most cost-effective, while storage costs are higher. New storage accounts are created in the hot tier by default.
- The Cool access tier. This tier is optimized for storing large amounts of data that is infrequently accessed and stored for at least 30 days. Storing data in the cool tier is more cost-effective, but accessing that data may be more expensive than accessing data in the hot tier.
- The Archive tier. This tier is available only for individual block blobs. The archive tier is optimized for data that can tolerate several hours of retrieval latency and that will remain in the archive tier for at least 180 days. The archive tier is the most cost-effective option for storing data. However, accessing that data is more expensive than accessing data in the hot or cool tiers.
If there’s a change in the usage pattern of your data, you can switch between these access tiers at any time.
Storage account endpoints
A storage account provides a unique namespace in Azure for your data. Every object that you store in Azure Storage has an address that includes your unique account name. The combination of the account name and the Azure Storage service endpoint forms the endpoints for your storage account.
For example, if your general-purpose storage account is named samplestorageaccount, then the default endpoints for that account are:
- Blob storage: https://<samplestorageaccount>.blob.core.windows.net
- Table storage: https://<samplestorageaccount>.table.core.windows.net
- Queue storage: https://<samplestorageaccount>.queue.core.windows.net
- Azure Files: https://<samplestorageaccount>.file.core.windows.net
