2.4.2. 💡 First Principle: Azure Disk Storage

First Principle: Azure Disk Storage provides persistent, high-performance block storage specifically designed for Azure Virtual Machines. Its core purpose is to act as the virtual hard drives for VMs, offering different performance tiers to match various workload requirements.

What It Is: Persistent block-level storage volumes that are used with Azure Virtual Machines. They are analogous to physical disks in an on-premises server but are virtualized.

Key Concepts:

• Persistent Storage: Unlike temporary disks, data on managed disks persists even when the VM is rebooted or stopped.
• Performance Tiers:
  • Standard HDD: Cost-effective for dev/test or non-critical workloads.
  • Standard SSD: Consistent performance for light to moderately used production workloads.
  • Premium SSD: High-performance, low-latency disks for I/O-intensive production workloads like databases.
  • Ultra Disk: The highest performance option for the most demanding workloads like SAP HANA or top-tier databases.

Scenario: You are deploying a high-traffic e-commerce website on an Azure VM. The website's database requires very fast disk I/O to handle a large number of transactions per second.

Reflection Question: Which type of Azure Disk Storage would be most appropriate for the database VM in this scenario, and why?

💡 Tip: Always match the disk type to the workload. Using a Standard HDD for a high-performance database will result in poor performance, while using an Ultra Disk for a simple file server is likely a waste of money.