A hard disk drive, the magnetic storage that underpins the performance of Standard HDD storage.
Also called hard disk drive.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains HDD in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change. - Performance
Routing method in Traffic Manager that directs users to whichever endpoint offers the lowest latency.
- Standard HDD
The cheapest Azure managed disk option, built on hard disk drives and meant for development, testing and workloads that aren't critical.
Related terms
- Media tier
Azure file shares sit on either HDD (standard), which costs less, or SSD (premium), which gives lower latency. Switching tiers means copying the data to a new share.
- Provisioned v2
Billing for Azure Files where IOPS, throughput and capacity are each chosen separately. Available for HDD and SSD, it is the advised model for any new deployment.
- Storage tier
Lets one volume span SSD and HDD by grouping disks of a single media type within a Storage Spaces pool. New-StorageTier creates them.