Is there any data on how fast Azure VM local drives are?

Question

I'm experimenting with OnStart() in my Azure role using "small" instances. Turns out it takes about two minutes to unpack a 400 megabytes ZIP file that is located in "local storage" on drive D into a folder on drive E.

I though maybe I should do it some other way around but I can't find any data about how fast the local disks on Azure VMs typically are.

Are there any test results for how fast Azure VM local disks are?

Answer 1

I just ran a comparison of disk performance between Azure and Amazon EC2. You can read it here, although you will probably want to translate it from Norwegian :-)

The interesting parts, though, are the following HD Tune screenshots.

First, a small instance at Amazon EC2 running Windows Server 2008:

Next, a small instance on Azure running Windows Server 2012:

This isn't a fair comparison, as some of the differences may be due to missing Windows 2012 drivers, but you may still find it useful.

As pointed out by Sandrino, though, small instances at Azure only get "moderate" I/O performance, and this may be an argument in favor of Amazon.

Answer 2

It all depends on your VM size: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/#cloud-services. As you can see a small instance will give you a moderate I/O performance, and medium/large/xxl will give you a high I/O performance.

If you want specifics I suggest you read through this blog post: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 VM Performance on Windows Azure Virtual Machines – Part I: I/O Performance results. They talk about the SQLIO tool that can help people decide on moving they SQL Server infrastructure to Windows Azure VMs.

This tool is interesting since it might just give you the info you need (read and write MB/s):