CODEWITHSUNDEEP
azurevirtual-machineazure-storage
Zac Mutrux
Zac Mutrux

Reputation: 21

windows azure virtual machine hard drive full

I have a virtual machine running Windows on Microsoft Windows Azure. I am noticing that one of the hard drives shows as completely full. Do these drives automatically expand as data is added, or do I need to increase storage, and if so--how?

Thanks for any tips.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2193

Answers (1)

Neil Mackenzie
Neil Mackenzie

Reputation: 2847

In Azure, both the OS Disk and any attached Data Disks are fixed format VHDs. They are not resized automatically and, in fact, there is no supported process to modify the size. Since these disks are allocated using sparse storage - i.e., you are only billed for space actually used - the general recommendation is to use 1TB disks. If the disk is empty you will not be billed.

Windows Server 2012 provides TRIM support which clears the space occupied in Azure Storage by deleted files. Without this support there could still be a charge for files which have been deleted from the filesystem but which still occupy pages in the page blob backing the VHD in Azure Storage.

Martin Balliauw has written up instructions for modifying the size of a VHD in Azure. He has also created a utility that helps with this task. This comes with a do it at your own risk warning.

Upvotes: 5

Related Questions