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I want to archive a Azure VM. It's currently deallocated, so we're not incurring compute charges, but we're still paying for the storage, even if it's not online. We want to move the storage to BLOB storage since it's cheaper, as we don't want to lose the data, but don't want to pay a premium to have it sit idle, either.

I tried to create an image, which then deleted the VM instance, but left the disks in-tact without a reference to them.

What's the best way to archive a VM?

CHEEKATLAPRADEEP
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Robear
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1 Answers1

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If your Disk is managed, you can take following steps. Now, Azure can let you change your Managed Disk type easily.

Steps:Go to Azure Portal> Stop (deallocate) your VM> Go to Your Disk> Account type > Choose standard (HDD)> Click Save

Then your disk will be successfully updated!

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After deleting the VM, you can also use the disk to create VM from the disk. Also, you can generate a URI for the disk to copy it to another storage account or export it. enter image description here If your Disk is unmanaged, you cannot convert the disk from Premium to standard directly. You need to create a new storage account (or use an existing storage account) and copy the blobs holding the disks from Premium account to Standard account. The best way is that you can use Azcopy to do this.

Wayne Yang
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  • I'm trying to go from managed disk to blob storage. We have 5x1TB SSD that are $135/mo each. Going to HDD drops that to $40/mo, but it's still more than than $20/$10/$1 that we'd have to pay if we moved it to hot/cool/archive on the blob. Is the only way to achieve this really to export, download to VM, and then upload to BLOB? – Robear Nov 15 '17 at 13:50
  • I can't just snapshot the VM to BLOB store and delete the VM instance? – Robear Nov 15 '17 at 13:51
  • Hi,@Robear. The way to achieve your request is not only one. You can also use snapshot of the disk and can also create a VM from the snapshot. If you want to save more money to achieve that. You can minimize unnecessary costs using snapshot. But the managed disk snapshot is not stored in Blob. – Wayne Yang Nov 16 '17 at 03:01
  • @Robear , If you have any issue or think about this case, don't be shy to let me know. – Wayne Yang Nov 16 '17 at 05:37