azure-storage

Sorts out where files, messages and tables should live in Azure, and how much you pay depending on how fast you need them back.

WHEN TO USE

SCOPE

USE FOR

Decide between Hot, Cool, Cold, and Archive blob access tiers for your data.
Upload or download a blob to or from a storage container.
Choose how many copies of your data Azure keeps, and whether they sit in different cities.
List the storage accounts, containers, or blobs in your subscription.
Choose between Blob, File Share, Queue, or Table storage for a workload.

NOT FOR

SQL databases or Cosmos DB; use azure-prepare for those.
Event Hubs or Service Bus messaging; use azure-messaging instead.

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In this document (10)

Azure Storage Services

Services

Service	Use When	MCP Tools	CLI
Blob Storage	Objects, files, backups, static content	`azure__storage`	`az storage blob`
File Shares	SMB file shares, lift-and-shift	-	`az storage file`
Queue Storage	Async messaging, task queues	-	`az storage queue`
Table Storage	NoSQL key-value (consider Cosmos DB)	-	`az storage table`
Data Lake	Big data analytics, hierarchical namespace	-	`az storage fs`

MCP Server (Preferred)

When Azure MCP is enabled:

azure__storage with command storage_account_list - List storage accounts
azure__storage with command storage_container_list - List containers in account
azure__storage with command storage_blob_list - List blobs in container
azure__storage with command storage_blob_get - Download blob content
azure__storage with command storage_blob_put - Upload blob content

If Azure MCP is not enabled: Run /azure:setup or enable via /mcp.

CLI Fallback

# List storage accounts
az storage account list --output table

# List containers
az storage container list --account-name ACCOUNT --output table

# List blobs
az storage blob list --account-name ACCOUNT --container-name CONTAINER --output table

# Download blob
az storage blob download --account-name ACCOUNT --container-name CONTAINER --name BLOB --file LOCAL_PATH

# Upload blob
az storage blob upload --account-name ACCOUNT --container-name CONTAINER --name BLOB --file LOCAL_PATH

Storage Account Tiers

Tier	Use Case	Performance
Standard	General purpose, backup	Milliseconds
Premium	Databases, high IOPS	Sub-millisecond

Blob Access Tiers

Tier	Access Frequency	Cost
Hot	Frequent	Higher storage, lower access
Cool	Infrequent (30+ days)	Lower storage, higher access
Cold	Rare (90+ days)	Lower still
Archive	Rarely (180+ days)	Lowest storage, rehydration required

Redundancy Options

Type	Durability	Use Case
LRS	11 nines	Dev/test, recreatable data
ZRS	12 nines	Regional high availability
GRS	16 nines	Disaster recovery
GZRS	16 nines	Best durability

Service Details

For deep documentation on specific services:

Blob storage patterns and lifecycle -> Blob Storage documentation
File shares and Azure File Sync -> Azure Files documentation
Queue patterns and poison handling -> Queue Storage documentation

SDK Quick References

For building applications with Azure Storage SDKs, see the condensed guides:

Blob Storage: Python | TypeScript | Java | Rust
Queue Storage: Python | TypeScript
File Shares: Python | TypeScript
Data Lake: Python
Tables: Python | Java

For full package listing across all languages, see SDK Usage Guide.

Azure SDKs

For building applications that interact with Azure Storage programmatically, Azure provides SDK packages in multiple languages (.NET, Java, JavaScript, Python, Go, Rust). See SDK Usage Guide for package names, installation commands, and quick start examples.

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What's inside

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