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azlin storage create

Create Azure Files NFS storage account for shared home directories across VMs.

Description

The azlin storage create command provisions a new Azure Files storage account with NFS v4.1 support, enabling you to share home directories and data across multiple VMs. The storage is accessible only within your Azure VNet for enhanced security.

Storage accounts provide persistent, shared storage that survives VM deletions and allows seamless data sharing between development environments.

Usage

azlin storage create NAME [OPTIONS]

Arguments

  • NAME - Globally unique storage account name (required)
  • Must be 3-24 characters long
  • Lowercase letters and numbers only
  • Must be unique across all of Azure

Options

Option Description Default
--size INTEGER Storage size in GB 100
--tier [premium\|standard] Performance tier Premium
--resource-group, --rg TEXT Azure resource group Current context
--region TEXT Azure region Current context region
-h, --help Show help message

Storage Tiers

Premium

  • Cost: $0.153/GB/month
  • Performance: High IOPS and throughput
  • Use Case: Development workloads, databases, frequent access
  • Minimum Size: 100 GB

Standard

  • Cost: $0.0184/GB/month
  • Performance: Standard throughput
  • Use Case: Backups, archives, infrequent access
  • Suitable for: Cost-sensitive workloads

Examples

Create Premium Storage for Team Development

# High-performance storage for active development
azlin storage create myteam-shared --size 100 --tier Premium

Output: 

Creating storage account 'myteam-shared'...
  Region: eastus
  Size: 100 GB
  Tier: Premium
  Monthly cost: ~$15.30

Storage account created successfully!
NFS endpoint: myteam-shared.file.core.windows.net

Mount on VMs with:
  azlin storage mount vm myteam-shared --vm <vm-name>

Create Standard Storage for Backups

# Cost-effective storage for backups
azlin storage create backups --size 500 --tier Standard

Output: 

Creating storage account 'backups'...
  Region: eastus
  Size: 500 GB
  Tier: Standard
  Monthly cost: ~$9.20

Storage account created successfully!

Create Storage in Specific Region

# Create storage in west coast region
azlin storage create westcoast-dev --size 200 --tier Premium --region westus2

Create Storage in Different Resource Group

# Create in production resource group
azlin storage create prod-shared --size 1000 --tier Premium --rg azlin-prod-rg

Large Backup Storage

# 2TB standard storage for long-term backups
azlin storage create longterm-backup --size 2000 --tier Standard

Common Use Cases

Shared Development Environment

Create shared storage for a team working on the same codebase:

# 1. Create shared storage
azlin storage create team-code --size 200 --tier Premium

# 2. Mount on all dev VMs
azlin storage mount vm team-code --vm dev-vm-1
azlin storage mount vm team-code --vm dev-vm-2
azlin storage mount vm team-code --vm dev-vm-3

# Now all VMs share the same /home directory

Persistent Project Data

Create storage that persists across VM recreations:

# Create project storage
azlin storage create ml-project --size 500 --tier Premium

# Clone VM with shared storage
azlin clone ml-base --name ml-worker-1
azlin storage mount vm ml-project --vm ml-worker-1

# Data persists even if VM is deleted

Cost-Optimized Backup Storage

# Large, infrequent-access storage
azlin storage create monthly-backups --size 5000 --tier Standard

# Mount temporarily for backups
azlin storage mount vm monthly-backups --vm backup-vm
# ... perform backup ...
azlin storage unmount --vm backup-vm

Cost Estimation

Storage costs are based on provisioned size:

Size Premium Monthly Standard Monthly
100 GB $15.30 $1.84
250 GB $38.25 $4.60
500 GB $76.50 $9.20
1 TB $156.67 $18.84
2 TB $313.34 $37.68

Note: Costs are estimates and may vary by region. Actual costs depend on provisioned capacity, not used capacity.

Troubleshooting

Storage Name Already Exists

Error: "Storage account name 'myteam' is already taken"

Solution: Storage names must be globally unique. Try adding a suffix: 

azlin storage create myteam-dev-2025 --size 100 --tier Premium

Invalid Storage Name

Error: "Storage name must be 3-24 chars, lowercase and numbers only"

Solution: Use only lowercase letters and numbers: 

# Bad: MyTeam-Shared, my_team
# Good: myteamshared, myteam2025
azlin storage create myteamshared --size 100 --tier Premium

Region Not Supported

Error: "NFS storage not available in region"

Solution: Use a supported region: 

azlin storage create mystorage --size 100 --tier Premium --region eastus

Quota Exceeded

Error: "Storage account quota exceeded"

Solution: Request quota increase or delete unused storage accounts: 

# List existing storage
azlin storage list

# Delete unused storage
azlin storage delete old-storage

Technical Details

NFS Configuration

  • Protocol: NFS v4.1
  • Network: VNet-integrated (no public access)
  • Security: Azure AD authentication
  • Encryption: Data encrypted at rest and in transit
  • Redundancy: Locally redundant storage (LRS)

Performance Characteristics

Premium Tier: - IOPS: Up to 100,000 - Throughput: Up to 10 GB/s - Latency: Single-digit milliseconds

Standard Tier: - IOPS: Up to 20,000 - Throughput: Up to 300 MB/s - Latency: 10-20 milliseconds

Storage Account Naming

Azure enforces strict naming rules: - Length: 3-24 characters - Characters: Lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9) - Must be globally unique across ALL Azure storage accounts - Cannot contain: Uppercase, hyphens, underscores, special characters

Good names: - myteam2025 (team with year) - projxdev (project abbreviation) - ai4research (descriptive)

Bad names: - MyTeam (uppercase) - my-team (hyphen) - my_team (underscore) - m (too short)

See Also