Storage Flashcards
What is the purpose of an OS disk?
Holds the OS related files.
What is the maximum size of an OS disk?
2048 GB
What is the purpose of a Data disk?
Holds general application and user data.
What is the maximum size of a Data disk?
32,767 GB
What is a Temp disk?
Short-term storage in each VM which is local to the server, not attached to a Storage Account.
Where do Ephemeral disks save their data?
It is saved local to the VM rather than to remote storage.
Is data held in Ephemeral disks free?
Yes. Because data is saved locally to the VM, it is free..
In what form are Managed Disks kept in Storage Accounts?
They are kept as page blobs.
What’s the maximum amount of Managed Disks per Subscription?
50k
What are the two types of encryption methods associated with Managed Disks?
Azure Storage Service Encryption (SSE) as part of the storage account or Azure Disk Encryption (ADE) which uses BitLocker or DM-Crypt depending on the VM’s OS.
What command would you use to convert an Unmanaged Disk to an Managed one?
ConvertTo-AzureRMVMManagedDisk -ResourceGroupName MyGroup -VMName JC-DC
Where can Ultra SSDs be used?
Only with VMs in Availability Zones.
What are some limitations of Ultra SSDs?
Data disk only, no snapshots, VM images, scale sets, recovery, encryption or backup.
What is Azure Files?
A cloud-based file share.
How can you access Azure File Shares?
Either mounting the share locally in Windows Explorer, using Azure File Sync or in the Azure Portal.
What would you use between Azure Files or Azure Files Sync for an on-prem service?
Azure File Sync works better for on-prem services whereas Azure Files is more suited to services running in Azure.
Where are Azure Files kept?
Within a storage account.
What’s the difference between standard and premium performance with Azure Files?
Standard uses HDDs with 300Mbps bandwidth whereas Premium uses SSDs with 5Gbps bandwidth.
What are some file migration command-line tools?
AzCopy in Azure CLI or Robocopy.
What are some file migration methods?
AzCopy, Robocopy, Azure Storage Explorer, Azure Import, Azure File Sync or Azure Data Boxes.
How do you connect to Azure Files Shares via SMB?
Within the File Share on Azure, there’s a connect option. Paste the PowerShell code into the shell to mount the share locally.
What do I use to connect to an Azure share with permissions set the traditional way?
Use Azure File Sync as this supports DACLs.
How does Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) work?
Creates 3 copies of each file within the same region.
How does Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS) work?
Creates 3 copies of each file within a region, then creates an additional 3 copies in a secondary region.
When can you get read-access to files in secondary regions when using GRS?
You can have read-access when the primary region is down.
How does Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS) work?
Put data into 3 clusters within a single region, each cluster is kept in different physical locations.
What happens with ZRS if a datacenter goes down?
ZRS keeps data in different physical locations therefore you should still have access if one datacenter goes down.
What if the region does down and I’m using ZRS?
You won’t have access to your data.
How does Geo-Zone Redundancy Storage (GZRS) work?
This takes ZRS but replicates the 3 data clusters to a secondary region which will have copies of those clusters.
When can you get read-access to files in secondary regions when using GZRS?
You have read-access, even if the primary region isn’t down.
What are Paired Regions for storage?
Where two regions are paired to protect against regional outages.
How would you modify the replication model for a storage account in PowerShell?
Use the Set-AzStorageAccount cmdlet then use the -SkuName parameter to define the replication model.
How would you modify the replication model for a storage account in the Azure Portal?
Under Configuration within the Storage Account.
Storage has failed over to the secondary site when using GRS, what replication model will be used after the failover process?
With the primary site being down, you will be using LSR with the secondary site acting as the primary.
Storage had failed over, how is everything put back to how it was?
Set your replication model back to what it was from LSR.
How do you understand how much data was lost during a failover?
Check the Last Sync Time.
