Microsoft Azure Storage Discovery

Microsoft have a new (currently in preview) service to give more visibility into your Azure Blob storage.

Azure Storage Discovery will:

• Measure how much data is stored across all storage accounts
• Identify regions experiencing the highest growth
• Find opportunities to reduce costs by locating infrequently used data
• Assess whether storage configurations align with security and compliance best practices

Storage is often a source of hidden spend (and waste) in the cloud, so this may well be a useful weapon in your arsenal.

How is it priced?

There is a Free tier and also a paid-for Standard tier.

1 The backfill feature automatically adds historic data into a Storage Discovery workspace from before the workspace is created.
2 Every workspace retains insights for some time to allow for historical analysis.

The total cost will be comprised of:

• Pricing plan
• Workspace configuration
• Number of storage resources & data objects analysed

Note that a storage resource can be included in multiple workspaces and will be charged in each one.

How much will all this cost? As the service is in Preview, and you’re able to use it for free, Microsoft haven’t released pricing details. These will become available on Azure.com before October 1, 2025, when billing kicks in.

To find out more about what it does and how it works, head here.