Azure storage hierarchical namespace billing skus

Question

I have created hierarchical blob storage for mounting as NFS and also exposing as SFTP. In my azure bill I see two types of skus: Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Hierarchical Namespace & General Block Blob v2 Hierarchical Namespace. Some operations like 10K other operations and 10K write operations are appearing under both skus under different pricing while LRS data stored and 10K read are appearing only under General Block Blob v2 Hierarchical Namespace. Any idea why we have two different types of skus for hierarchical namespace? What is the difference? This is becoming vital for usage estimation and pricing. I am opening an Azure ticket to check with MS, but appreciate if anyone is aware of this issue.

Answer 1

According to this MS-Document1 and MS-Document2,

The difference between them is that Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 Hierarchical Namespace is optimized for analytics workloads, while General Block Blob v2 Hierarchical Namespace is optimized for general purpose workloads.

Any idea why we have two different types of SKUs for hierarchical namespace? What is the difference?

• The reason for having two different types of SKUs for hierarchical namespace in Azure storage is that they have different capabilities and pricing structures.
• The General Block Blob v2 Hierarchical Namespace SKU is designed for storing unstructured objects and provides block blobs and append blobs only, while the Premium Page Blob SKU is designed for page blobs only and uses solid-state drives (SSDs) for low latency and high throughput.
• The pricing for these SKUs varies based on the type of storage redundancy selected and the access tier (hot or cool) chosen

For example, LRS data storage and 10K read operations are only available under General Block Blob v2 Hierarchical Namespace, while 10K other operations and 10K write operations appear under both SKUs under different pricing because they are common operations that can be performed on both types of storage accounts.

It's important to choose the correct pricing page for the service you are using to accurately estimate usage and pricing.

Reference:

Azure Storage Blobs Pricing | Microsoft Azure