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The max size for Windows Azure drive is 1T

M$ only charged for the data in it, not for the size

My question is: why not just create an Azure Drive at size 1T, so no more worries about resize etc.

Or there has catch if I create a Drive bigger than I need.

Eric Yin
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I often do that when creating an Azure Drive: allocating a maximum size drive of 1TB. No discernable penalty. The only advantage to setting a smaller size: protecting yourself against cost overruns. There might be a possibility it takes longer to initialize a 1TB drive, but I haven't measured it.

David Makogon
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    It's not the only advantage. It takes less time to provision and it doesn't count against your quota. – dunnry Feb 17 '12 at 13:57
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I have not yet found a lot of use for Azure Drives given some of the limitations that they have and the other storage options that are available, so I have only done some playing with them, not actually used one in a production environment.

With that said, based on my understanding, and the description you give in your question about only being charged for the amount of content stored on the drive I do not see any issue with creating a large drive initially and growing into it in the future.

Hope that helps some, even if it is just a - yes I think you understand it correctly!

Mike Erickson
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The reason is pretty simple if you tried it. Namely, while you are not charged except for the data inside the drive, it does count against your quota limit. So, if every drive was 1TB, then you could create only 99 drives (think overhead here) before your storage account quota was gone. Also, yes, it does take longer to create a 1TB drive versus a smaller one (in practice).

dunnry
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    100T is the limitation for 1 storage account, but you can have 20 of them. So I do not think the overhead for 1 storage account is the issue here. – Eric Yin Feb 17 '12 at 05:33
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    Ok, not an issue for you. You can also buy multiple subs and get another 20 storage accounts. None of that matters in the context of your question. You asked why not to do it and I told you why - quota and time. Yet, you accept an answer that tells you what you want to hear and not one that tells you what you asked. – dunnry Feb 17 '12 at 14:01
  • I would love to know if someone did this before. And I give upvote to people who helps. I agree that you have a good point, but since 1 instance can mount max 16 drives, you cannot really create 99 drives in real life. Thank you very much for your help and the overhead you point out. When I asked this question, I more like to get some M$ insides of what them thought when they design this. Since no one knows, of course I choose an answer from who tried before. – Eric Yin Feb 17 '12 at 14:29