Hello and welcome to storage account types in Microsoft Azure. In this lesson, we are going to take a look at the different types of storage accounts that are available when it comes time to provision storage in your Azure subscription.

Before we get into the different types of storage accounts. Let’s talk a little bit about what a storage account is and what it’s used for. A storage account in Azure can be viewed as the container, so to speak, that houses all of your Azure storage data objects. A storage account can host blobs, Azure Files, queues, tables, and disks.

When you provision a storage account. You are asked to provide a unique name for that storage account. This is necessary because data within a storage account is accessible from anywhere in the world. That being the case, the storage account namespace must be unique across the Azure landscape.

There are several different types of storage accounts available. Each type offers different features, and each has a different pricing model.

The first type of storage account is the general-purpose V2 account. A general-purpose V2 storage account is a basic storage account that can be used, to host blobs, files, queues, and tables. Microsoft recommends using the general-purpose V2 storage account for most scenarios that require Azure storage.

The general-purpose V1 storage account is similar to the V2 account. This legacy type account can also host blobs, files, queues, and tables. While a general-purpose V1 account offers similar functionality to the V2 accounts, Microsoft recommends using the general-purpose V2 account instead. This tells me that the general-purpose V1 storage account will probably go away at some point in the future.

The next type of storage account we are going to take a look at here is the block blob storage account. Block blob storage accounts offer premium performance for block blobs and append blobs. You would typically use a block blob storage account for situations where high transaction rates are in play. Block blob storage accounts are also a good choice for scenarios that require low storage latency.

File storage accounts are exactly what the name says they are. They are files only storage accounts. Because they feature high-performance characteristics, Microsoft recommends using these kinds of accounts for enterprise applications or for high-performing applications.

The last storage account type touch on here is the blob storage account. The blob storage account is a legacy account that is used for blob only storage. Microsoft actually recommends that, instead of using blob storage accounts, you use general-purpose V2 accounts. Like the general-purpose V1 accounts, I suspect the blob storage accounts, because of their legacy status, will likely go away sometime in the future.

The table that you see on your screen right now shows each of the different types of storage accounts, along with their key features. As you can see on your screen. Every storage account type is encrypted using storage service encryption, or SSE, for data that is at rest.

I should point out that archive storage and blob level tiering only support block blobs.

Another key point I should mention here is that zone redundant storage and Geo zone redundant storage are only available for standard general-purpose V2 accounts, block blob accounts, and file storage accounts in certain regions.

The premium performance that you see listed for general-purpose V2 and general-purpose V1 accounts is only available for disk storage and page blobs. Premium performance for block blobs and append blobs is only available for block blob accounts. Also, just as importantly, premium performance for files is only available on file storage accounts.

For more information on the different storage accounts available in Microsoft Azure, visit the URL that you see on your screen:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-account-overview