Pricing at a glance
Azure Data Lake Storage is the analytics layer of Azure Blob Storage, available in General Purpose v2 storage accounts. Microsoft bills data stored plus operations on that data.
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| Decision point | What Microsoft states |
|---|---|
Price depends on | File structure (flat or hierarchical namespace), redundancy (LRS, ZRS, GRS, RA GRS, GZRS, RA GZRS), region, currency, and access tier (Premium, Hot, Cool, Cold, Archive) |
Storage unit | Binary GB (1 GB = 2^30 bytes); 1 TB = 1,024 GB |
Free start | Pay as you go, or an Azure free trial for up to 30 days; the pricing page offers a $200 credit to explore Azure for 30 days |
Listed prices | Estimates only, not quotes; actual price varies with your Microsoft agreement, purchase date and exchange rate |
Which options fit your workload
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| Option | Fits when | Billing effect |
|---|---|---|
Flat namespace | Data is used like a blob store, in a flat structure | Same storage price; no extra meta-data charge |
Hierarchical namespace | Jobs rename or delete folders; each is one atomic operation instead of one per object | Same storage price, plus charges for folder and directory meta-data |
Reserved capacity | Steady storage in 100 TB or 1 PB blocks for one or three years | Fixed commitment for one region, tier and redundancy; higher discounts on 1 PB blocks |
Reserved capacity terms
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| Term | What Microsoft states |
|---|---|
Tiers and payment | Hot, Cool or Archive, on any available redundancy, in one region; pay once upfront or monthly |
Scope | One subscription or shared resource group; usage is pooled, cannot target one account or be split across subscriptions; a mid-month purchase is pro-rated |
Not covered | Premium Storage, other storage types, early deletion charges, operations and data transfer |
Exchange or cancel | Unlimited exchanges with no fee, into equal or greater value; cancellation refunds the prorated balance minus a 12 percent early termination fee, up to $50,000 per year |
How it is charged | Enterprise Agreement: Azure Prepayment is used first; Azure.com: card on file is charged upfront or monthly |
At expiry | Email 30 days before and on the date; capacity keeps running at the then current pay-as-you-go rate |
How the bill is built
Storage is charged per GB by tier, with capacity bands on some tiers; in Microsoft's data storage rate tables, the per-GB rate falls from Hot to Cool to Cold, and to Archive where Archive is offered. Operations are charged per 10,000, and one transaction covers each 4 MB block read or written; a file under 4 MB still costs a full transaction. Directory renames use a separate meter. List Filesystem and List Path count as iterative reads; RenameDirectory, RenamePath and RenamePathDir count as iterative writes, priced per 100. Delete is free.
Microsoft's worked examples
Microsoft's Hot Tier example: 120 TB stored all month, 100 million operations of 6 MB each (20% writes, 80% reads, so two transactions each) and 10K directory renames. With a hierarchical namespace, meta-data raises billed storage to 132 TB.
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| Meter | Flat namespace | Hierarchical namespace |
|---|---|---|
Storage ($0.0184 for first 50 TB, $0.0177 for next 450 TB) | $0.0184 * 50 TB = $942.08 + $0.0177 * 70 TB = $1,268.736; $2,210.816 | $0.0184 * 50 TB = $942.08 + $0.0177 * 82 TB = $1,486.234; $2,428.314 |
Writes | 2 * $0.05 per 10K * 20M = $200 | 2 * $0.065 per 10K * 20M = $260 |
Reads | 2 * $0.004 per 10K * 80M = $64 | 2 * $0.0052 per 10K * 80M = $83.20 |
Directory renames | $0.05 per 100 * 10K = $5 | $0.065 per 100 * 10K = $6.50 |
Total monthly cost (storage, transactions and renames only) | $2,479.816 | $2,778.014 |
Reserved, LRS Hot, US West 2: 100 TB for 1 year is $18,540 upfront, or $1,545 a month for 12 months. In a 101 TB month the bill is $1,545 plus $19 for 1 TB at pay-go prices, $1,564 in total; in an 80 TB month it is still $1,545.
What drives the bill
File size. Microsoft says larger files are more cost effective.
Tier and lifecycle. Microsoft names tiering, reservations and lifecycle management as its pricing levers.
Geo-redundancy. Writes to GRS accounts add a Geo-Replication Data Transfer charge, also applied when switching an account from LRS to GRS or RA-GRS.
Costs that are easy to miss
Downgrading redundancy. An account moved from RA-GRS to GRS or LRS is billed as RA-GRS for another 30 days; RA-GZRS to GZRS or ZRS works the same way.
Our take
Turn on the hierarchical namespace if your analytics jobs rename or delete directories; the meta-data charge and, in Microsoft's example, higher operation rates buy atomic directory work. Buy reserved capacity only when storage will stay at or above a 100 TB block in one region, tier and redundancy for at least a year.