Azure Blob Storage: What Is Blob Storage?

Introduction

Azure Blob Storage is Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. Blob stands for "Binary Large Object" - it's designed to store massive amounts of unstructured data like text, images, videos, and documents.

Key Concepts

Storage Account

The top-level container for all your blobs. It provides a unique namespace for your data accessible via HTTP/HTTPS.

Containers

Like folders in a file system - they organize your blobs. Containers can hold unlimited blobs.

Blobs

The actual data files. Azure supports three blob types:

Block Blobs - For text and binary files (most common)
Append Blobs - For logging scenarios (追加 only)
Page Blobs - For random access scenarios (like VHD disks)

Use Cases

Use Case	Description
Document Storage	PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets
Media Files	Images, videos, audio files
Backups	Database backups, file backups
Data Lake	Big data analytics storage
Static Websites	Host HTML, CSS, JS files

Getting Started

Create a Storage Account via Portal

Search "Storage accounts" in Azure Portal
Click "Create"
Fill in: Subscription, Resource Group, Storage account name
Choose Region and Performance (Standard/Premium)
Review and Create

View Storage Account

Resource Group: my-rg
Storage Account: mystorage001
├─ Containers
│  ├─ images
│  ├─ documents
│  └─ backups
└─ Data types: Blobs, Files, Queues, Tables

Access Tiers

Azure offers different tiers to optimize cost:

Tier	Best For	Cost
Hot	Frequently accessed data	Highest
Cool	Infrequently accessed (30+ days)	Lower
Cold	Rarely accessed (90+ days)	Very low
Archive	Rarely accessed (180+ days)	Lowest

Quick Reference

Portal:          portal.azure.com → Storage Accounts
CLI:             az storage account create, az storage container create
SDK:             Azure.Storage.Blobs (NuGet)
Connection:      DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=...;AccountKey=...

Next Steps

Azure Integration Hub - Beginner Level