Azure Storage Services

Here are all the storage types & services available on the Azure :

1

Azure Blob Storage

Azure Blob Storage is a highly scalable object storage solution designed to store large amounts of unstructured data such as images, videos, documents, backups, and logs. It supports different access tiers (Hot, Cool, and Archive) to optimize costs based on data retrieval frequency. It integrates with Azure Data Lake Storage for big data analytics and provides security features like encryption, access policies, and Azure AD authentication.

2

Azure Queue Storage

Azure Queue Storage is a cloud messaging service that enables asynchronous communication between application components, ensuring reliable message delivery and decoupling of distributed systems. It supports millions of messages, provides high availability, and allows messages to be accessed from anywhere via authenticated HTTP or HTTPS calls, making it ideal for workload balancing and task processing scenarios.

3

Azure Table Storage

Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store that allows storage of structured, schemaless data in a flexible and scalable manner. It is optimized for fast access to large datasets, making it suitable for applications like logging, IoT, and big data. It provides global accessibility, auto-scaling, and high availability, while integrating with Azure Cosmos DB for enhanced capabilities.

4

Azure Disk Storage

Azure Disk Storage offers high-performance, durable, and secure block storage for Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). It supports both HDD and SSD options (Standard HDD, Standard SSD, Premium SSD, and Ultra Disk) to meet different workload requirements. Features like disk encryption, snapshots, scalability, and zone redundancy make it a reliable storage solution for mission-critical applications.

5

Azure File Storage

Azure File Storage is a fully managed shared file system that supports the Server Message Block (SMB) and Network File System (NFS) protocols, enabling seamless file sharing across multiple virtual machines and on-premises environments. It provides built-in redundancy, Azure File Sync for hybrid cloud storage, and enterprise-grade security, making it ideal for applications requiring shared access to files.

Azure Storage Account :

Azure Storage Account is the foundation of all Azure storage services, providing a unified namespace to manage Blobs, Queues, Tables, Disks, and File Shares under a single account. It supports different redundancy options such as Locally Redundant Storage (LRS), Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS), and Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) to ensure data durability and disaster recovery. It also includes security features like encryption, access control, and integration with Azure Monitor for tracking storage performance.

Data Redundancy Types :

LRS

Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) stores multiple copies of data within a single Azure datacenter in the same region. It provides protection against hardware failures but does not safeguard against datacenter outages. LRS is the most cost-effective redundancy option and is suitable for applications that do not require cross-region disaster recovery.

ZRS

Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) replicates data across multiple availability zones within the same Azure region, ensuring high availability even if one zone goes down. ZRS is ideal for mission-critical applications that require low-latency access and protection from zonal failures while maintaining strong consistency.

GRS

Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS) replicates data across two geographically separated regions—one primary and one secondary. In case of a regional failure, Azure automatically fails over to the secondary region, ensuring disaster recovery. However, the secondary region remains inaccessible until failover occurs. GRS provides a balance between cost and resiliency for critical applications.

Ra-GRS

Read-Access Geo-Redundant Storage (RA-GRS) is an extension of GRS that allows read-only access to the secondary region, enabling applications to read from the replica in case of primary region unavailability. This improves availability and reduces downtime while still ensuring geo-redundancy for disaster recovery scenarios.