Updating Disk Properties in Azure
- Virgil Fritz Taneza
To update the size, type, or performance characteristics of an Azure managed disk, you can follow these steps using the Azure Portal. Please note that you need the appropriate permissions to perform these operations.
Warning: Before proceeding, ensure that you have appropriate permissions to modify an Azure managed disk properties, and make sure to backup critical data to avoid data loss during the process. Please check also the table below for the different supported Azure managed disk types and its brief description as guidance in deciding which disk type to use depending on your use case, performance and budget requirements.
Storage Type | Brief Description |
|---|---|
Premium SSD | Best for production and performance sensitive workloads |
Standard SSD | Best for web servers, lightly used enterprise applications and dev/test |
Standard HDD | Best for backup, non-critical, and infrequent access |
Ultra Disk | Best for IO-intensive workloads such as SAP HANA, top-tier databases (for example, SQL, Oracle), and other transaction-heavy workloads |
Azure may have released new types of disks which may not be supported by SoftNAS as of this writing. Rest assured we are constantly monitoring new updates from Azure and test them accordingly but If you want a new type to be supported in SoftNAS, please let us know so we can prioritize it by contacting our Support.
For the updated pricing and performance characteristics of each of the SoftNAS supported Azure disk types, please check Azure documentations directly here Pricing - Managed Disks | Microsoft Azure
When using SoftNAS, you can add Azure disks and attach them to the instance and create a Storage pool out of them. Storage pools are used to aggregate disk storage into a large pool of storage that can be conveniently allocated and shared by volumes.
Warning: To achieve optimal performance of a Storage Pool, SoftNAS recommends the use of disks of same types, sizes and performance characteristics. In existing Storage pools with varying disk types and sizes, SoftNAS recommends updating all the disk types to same type and performance characteristics and updating the disk sizes to a value greater than or equal to the largest disk size used by the pool. These configurations can be updated by changing the disk size, type and performance characteristics via the Azure Portal.
Here's a comprehensive guide on how to update the size, type, and performance characteristics of an Azure Managed Disk using the Azure Portal. This guide assumes you have an existing Azure Virtual Machine with attached Managed Disks and the necessary permissions to perform these operations.
1. Login to Azure Portal
Open a web browser and go to the Azure Portal and Sign in with your Azure account credentials.
2. Locate the Virtual Machine and Managed Disk
2.1 In the Azure Portal, click on "All resources" on the left-hand side to view your Azure resources.
2.2 Search for and select the Azure Virtual Machine that has the Managed Disk you want to update.
2.3 In the Virtual Machine's blade, under the "Settings" section, click on "Disks" to see the list of attached disks.
3. Identify the Managed Disk
In the list of attached disks, click on the name of the Managed Disk that you want to update.
3.1 Get the Disk Name of the Desired Disk from SoftNAS® StorageCenter
In SoftNAS StorageCenter, navigate to “Disk Devices” in the left side bar to view a list of your disk devices. Identify the corresponding name of the disk you want to resize.
3.2 Search Desired Disk from the List of Virtual Machine’s Data Disks
In the Virtual Machine’s Data Disks list, search for the desired disk using the disk name retrieved from SoftNAS StorageCenter’s Disk Devices list.
4. Select the Disk
After filtering the list of the Virtual Machine’s Data Disks list, click on the Disk Name of the desired disk to go to the Managed Disk blade
5. Go to Size + performance
In the Managed Disk blade, go to the "Size + performance" section.
6. Modify Disk’s Storage type, size and Performance
In the “Size + performance” section of the Managed Disk blade, you can do the following:
Set to newly desired Storage type
Adjust the disk size to the newly desired capacity
Adjust the IOPS and Throughput performance characteristics
Click on Save button after configuring the disk with either or both new size, type and performance characteristics
7. Confirm and Monitor
Azure will apply the changes to the managed disk. This process might take some time, depending on the size and type of the disk. Monitor the status in the Azure Portal.
8. Update File System
If you are resizing/expanding the Azure Managed Disk, you may need to expand the filesystem using appropriate commands for your system.
8.1 Expand the Storage Pool Quota
If you are resizing/expanding the Azure disk which is part of an existing SoftNAS Storage Pool, you need to expand the Storage Pool’s size and set new quota to 80% of the new Storage Pool’s size.
Here are the steps on how to update the Storage Pool’s quota:
8.1.1 Expand the device to use all available space
Expand the device to use all available space. If the device is part of a mirror or raidz then all devices must be expanded before the new space will become available to the Storage pool. Execute the command zpool online -e <pool name> <device name> as below:
Before expanding the device used by the pool, lets examine first the pool’s current size
root@softnas-541:~# zpool get -p size nas_pool # get the pool's current size
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
nas_pool size 102005473280 - # size is around 95GB
as you can see, the pool’s current size is still 95GB which is the usable space of the pool composed of disks of sizes 64GB and 32GB.
Now, we can expand the device used by the pool as below:
root@softnas-541:~# zpool online -e nas_pool sdb # expand the pool's disk
root@softnas-541:~# echo $? # check if command is successfull
0
root@softnas-541:~# zpool get -p size nas_pool # check pool's new size
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
nas_pool size 136365211648 - # size is now around 127GB
root@softnas-541:~#Get 80% of the pool’s new size and set it as the pool’s new quota.
# new_quota = 127GB * 0.80 = 101.6GB
root@softnas-541:~# zfs set quota=101.6G nas_pool # set pool's new quota
root@softnas-541:~# zfs get quota nas_pool # get pool's new quota
NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
nas_pool quota 102G local # 102GB is the new quota rounding up 101.6GB
root@softnas-541:~#9. Monitor and Test
After the modification is complete, monitor your system's performance to ensure it meets your expectations.