When you buy an Azure Stack appliance, you have several options with regards to the configuration, one of them being the physical storage that is supplied. The most common option is a mixture of SATA HDD’s and SSD’s, due to the price point. So, how does Azure Stack use this storage? Can you configure how it’s used? The SSD’s are reserved for temp disks / Premium Storage accounts just like Public Azure, right? I was having a discussion recently about the questions above and whilst I had some answers, I certainly didn’t have them all. Microsoft have given some details on the architecture and technology utilized, but how does it work together to provide an Azure consistent experience?

I decided to spend some time having a poke around to better my understanding of how the technology works.