Read a file from Azure Cool and Cold Tiers.

Parmar, Sanjay 20 Reputation points
2024-07-23T21:48:40.9+00:00

I have following questions about reading a file from Azure Blob Cool and Cold Tiers.

  1. Is it possible to read a file saved in Cool or Cold Tiers? or does it need to bring back to Hot Tier before reading?
  2. If a Tier change is required from Cool/Cold to Hot, how long does it take to do it?
Azure Storage Accounts
Azure Storage Accounts
Globally unique resources that provide access to data management services and serve as the parent namespace for the services.
3,084 questions
Azure Blob Storage
Azure Blob Storage
An Azure service that stores unstructured data in the cloud as blobs.
2,776 questions
{count} votes

Accepted answer
  1. KarishmaTiwari-MSFT 19,782 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2024-07-24T00:55:37.1266667+00:00

    @Parmar, Sanjay

    1. You can read files directly from the Cool or cold Tier without needing to move them to the Hot Tier.
    2. Changing a blob's tier from a cold or cool to hot is instantaneous. Data in the cool tier should be stored for a minimum of 30 days while data in the cold tier should be stored for a minimum of 90 days.

    After a blob is created, you can change its tier in either of the following ways:

    By calling the Copy Blob operation to copy a blob from one tier to another. Calling Copy Blob is recommended for most scenarios where you're rehydrating a blob from the archive tier to an online tier, or moving a blob from cool or cold to hot. By copying a blob, you can avoid the early deletion penalty, if the required storage interval for the source blob hasn't yet elapsed. However, copying a blob results in capacity charges for two blobs, the source blob and the destination blob.

    Pricing

    Data access charges increase as the tier gets cooler. For data in the cool, cold and archive access tier, you're charged a per-gigabyte data access charge for reads.

    Billing impacts when changing a blob's tier

    Additional reading:

    Set a blob's access tier

    Best practices for using blob access tiers


    If you have any questions, let me know in the "comments" and I would be happy to help you. Comment is the fastest way of notifying the experts.

    If the answer has been helpful, we appreciate hearing from you and would love to help others who may have the same question. Accepting answers helps increase the visibility of this question for other members of the Microsoft Q&A community.

    Thank you for helping to improve Microsoft Q&A!

    User's image

    0 comments No comments

1 additional answer

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. akinbade abiola 14,430 Reputation points
    2024-07-23T22:55:50.91+00:00
    1. Yes it is possible to read without changing tiers for the Cool as well as cold tier with higher read costs. Cold tier has slightly higher latency for first byte access compared to Hot and Cool tiers.
    2. If you decide to change tiers, cool to hot is instant. While cold to hot may take a few hours

    You can change tier using the command below:

    az storage blob set-tier --account-name <storage-account-name> --container-name <container-name> --name <blob-name> --tier <Hot|Cool>
    

    See: https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/azure/storage/blobs/access-tiers-overview?source=recommendations#summary-of-access-tier-options

    You can mark it 'Accept Answer' and 'Upvote' if this helped you

    Regards,

    Abiola

    0 comments No comments

Your answer

Answers can be marked as Accepted Answers by the question author, which helps users to know the answer solved the author's problem.