Performance tiers for managed disks
Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ Windows VMs ✔️ Flexible scale sets ✔️ Uniform scale sets
Note
This article covers what performance tiers are, conceptually. If you want to learn how to change the performance of disks that don't use performance tiers, like Ultra Disks or Premium SSD v2, see either Adjust the performance of an ultra disk or Adjust disk performance of a Premium SSD v2
When you set the provisioned size of a Premium solid-state drive (SSD), a performance tier is automatically selected based on the size you set. The performance tier determines the IOPS and throughput your managed disk has. For Premium SSD disks only, the performance tier can be changed at deployment or afterwards, without changing the size of the disk, and without downtime.
Changing the performance tier allows you to prepare to meet higher demand without using your disk's bursting capability. It can be more cost-effective to change your performance tier rather than rely on bursting, depending on how long the extra performance is necessary. This is ideal for events that temporarily require a consistently higher level of performance, like holiday shopping, performance testing, or running a training environment. To handle these events, you can switch a disk to a higher performance tier without downtime, for as long as you need the extra performance. You can then return to the original tier without downtime when the extra performance is no longer necessary.
To learn more about how the performance of a disk works with the performance of a virtual machine, see Virtual machine and disk performance.
Restrictions
- Changing the performance tier is currently only supported for Premium SSD managed disks.
- Performance tiers of shared disks can't be changed while attached to running VMs.
- To change the performance tier of a shared disk, stop all the VMs the disk is attached to.
- Only disks larger than 4,096 GiB can use the P60, P70, and P80 performance tiers.
- A disk's performance tier can be downgraded only once every 12 hours.
- The system doesn't return
Performance Tierfor disks created before June 2020. You can take advantage ofPerformance Tierfor an older disk by updating it with the baseline Tier.
How it works
When you first deploy or provision a disk, the baseline performance tier for that disk is set based on the provisioned disk size. You can use a performance tier higher than the original baseline to meet higher demand. When you no longer need that performance level, you can return to the initial baseline performance tier.
Billing impact
Disk billing changes as its performance tier changes. For example, if you provision a P10 disk (128 GiB), your baseline performance tier is set as P10 (500 IOPS and 100 MBps). Your disk is billed at the P10 rate. You can set the disk's performance tier to P50 (7,500 IOPS and 250 MBps) without increasing the disk size. While the disk's performance tier is set to P50, your disk is billed at the P50 rate. When you no longer need the higher performance, you can set the performance tier of the disk back to the P10 tier and your disk's billing will return to the P10 rate.
For billing information, see Managed disk pricing.
What tiers can be changed
The following table depicts which tiers each baseline performance tier can upgrade to.
| Disk size | Baseline performance tier | Can be upgraded to |
|---|---|---|
| 4 GiB | P1 | P2, P3, P4, P6, P10, P15, P20, P30, P40, P50 |
| 8 GiB | P2 | P3, P4, P6, P10, P15, P20, P30, P40, P50 |
| 16 GiB | P3 | P4, P6, P10, P15, P20, P30, P40, P50 |
| 32 GiB | P4 | P6, P10, P15, P20, P30, P40, P50 |
| 64 GiB | P6 | P10, P15, P20, P30, P40, P50 |
| 128 GiB | P10 | P15, P20, P30, P40, P50 |
| 256 GiB | P15 | P20, P30, P40, P50 |
| 512 GiB | P20 | P30, P40, P50 |
| 1 TiB | P30 | P40, P50 |
| 2 TiB | P40 | P50 |
| 4 TiB | P50 | None |
| 8 TiB | P60 | P70, P80 |
| 16 TiB | P70 | P80 |
| 32 TiB | P80 | None |
Next steps
To learn how to change your performance tier, see Change your performance tier without downtime.