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I did not find an authoritative statement in Azure documentation that Azure Temporary Storage tied to different VM types is always SSD based. On this page, only certain VM types are explicitly shown as having SSD storage. Is Azure Temporary Storage tied to different VM types always SSD based?

Can it also be said that this Temporary Storage is always located on disks that are physically attached to the host computer?

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  • Just now I read "The L-Series is an unusual virtual machine because all of the disks (OS, temp, and data) are on host-local flash storage, resulting in high IOPS and throughput as well as extremely low latency." - petri.com/digging-into-azure-vm-disk-performance-features . I'm unable to find any official doc link though that says OS & data are also on local storage. There is so much to know about VM types & their features!
    – mvark
    Dec 6, 2018 at 4:58

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Yes, both the statements are true. they are always local and always almost always SSD (A series have HDD, everything else SSD). and performance might differ.

There is a special "big\performant local ssd" VM sku, for example.
Reading: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/sizes

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  • Sure about the local attached? Not that it matters when the backend is 2x 100 gigabit (which i assume). I would assume Microsoft runs a Hyperconverged Cluster there, similar to what is offered in Server 2019 - this is heavily propagated.
    – TomTom
    Nov 22, 2018 at 11:12
  • blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mast/2013/12/06/…
    – 4c74356b41
    Nov 22, 2018 at 11:14
  • updated answer, I'm not really using A series, so forgot about those
    – 4c74356b41
    Nov 22, 2018 at 11:18
  • Ah yah, that makes sense. So temp storage IS local - amazing.
    – TomTom
    Nov 22, 2018 at 11:24
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Where temporary storage lives is not specified because it isn't guaranteed. That is an implementation detail of the Azure platform, not a contract.

Although, it is reasonable to assume the temporary storage is still on not-redundant storage attached direct to the physical hosts: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mast/2013/12/06/understanding-the-temporary-drive-on-windows-azure-virtual-machines/

This does not matter when using it. Do you have a temporary storage need, like paging space or temporary databases? Then try the temporary disk. Doesn't meet your performance requirements? Allocate data disks with enough IOPS instead.

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