Microsoft provides us with various storage tiers in Azure for Blob Storage. It is very important to understand the different storage tiers that you will be using to access the most frequently used data or that data that is archived.
What are the different Storage Tiers in Azure ?
Microsoft Azure offers 3 storage tiers for blob storage. These include
- Hot storage tier – This is the tier that is optimized for data that is accessed very frequently. When a storage is marked as Hot, it means that we would want these files to be immediately be accessible. The storage cost for the Hot tier is usually higher but the access cost is much lower when compared to other tiers.
- Cool storage tier – This is the tier that is optimized for data that is infrequently accessed . This is the data that is at least stored for 30 days. A simple example of the cool storage is a file that is accessed once in a month. You don’t want to pay a higher cost bu putting the file in the Hot tier. Instead cool storage is a good fit for these kind of files. The cool storage tier has lower storage cost but slightly higher access cost.
- Archive storage tier – This is the tier that is optimized for data which is rarely accessed . This includes the data that is stored for at least 180 days. As the name suggests , this is used for archive data. You can store the files that you hardly access in the Archive storage. One of the simple example that fits in to the archive storage is the backup files. The archive storage tier has lowest storage cost but the access cost is slightly higher than the other tiers.
Also, note that it is important that you save the files to azure storage tiers and keep it at least for 30 days as you would usually be charged for 30 days.
