Azure storage accounts and redundancy

1Check a name before you create it

Try a bad name and a good one:

az storage account check-name --name St-Saat
$st = "stsaat" + (Get-Random -Minimum 10000 -Maximum 99999)
az storage account check-name --name $st --query nameAvailable

You should see something like this:

{
  "message": "St-Saat is not a valid storage account name. Storage account name must be between 3 and 24 characters in length and use numbers and lower-case letters only.",
  "nameAvailable": false,
  "reason": "AccountNameInvalid"
}
true

2Create the course storage account

This account stays for Lessons 22 to 26, so it goes in its own kept group. Save the name for later:

az group create --name rg-saat-data --tags course=saatvedha-azure lesson=21 keep=true -o none
az storage account create --resource-group rg-saat-data --name $st --location centralindia --sku Standard_LRS --kind StorageV2 --access-tier Hot --min-tls-version TLS1_2 --https-only true --allow-blob-public-access false --tags course=saatvedha-azure lesson=21 keep=true -o none
Set-Content -Path C:\azure-lab\storage.txt -Value $st
az storage account show --resource-group rg-saat-data --name $st --query "{name:name, kind:kind, sku:sku.name, tier:accessTier, tls:minimumTlsVersion, publicBlob:allowBlobPublicAccess, blob:primaryEndpoints.blob}" -o table

You should see something like this:

Name         Kind       Sku           Tier    Tls     PublicBlob    Blob
-----------  ---------  ------------  ------  ------  ------------  ---------------------------------------
stsaat48213  StorageV2  Standard_LRS  Hot     TLS1_2  False         https://stsaat48213.blob.core.windows.net/

In a new PowerShell window later, load the name with $st = (Get-Content C:\azure-lab\storage.txt).

3Give yourself a data role and upload a file

Run this:

$id = az storage account show --resource-group rg-saat-data --name $st --query id -o tsv
$me = az ad signed-in-user show --query id -o tsv
az role assignment create --assignee $me --role "Storage Blob Data Contributor" --scope $id -o none
Start-Sleep -Seconds 120
az storage container create --account-name $st --name lab --auth-mode login -o none
Set-Content -Path C:\azure-lab\hello.txt -Value 'hello from lesson 21'
az storage blob upload --account-name $st --container-name lab --name hello.txt --file C:\azure-lab\hello.txt --auth-mode login -o none
az storage blob list --account-name $st --container-name lab --auth-mode login --query "[].{name:name, bytes:properties.contentLength, tier:properties.blobTier}" -o table

You should see this:

Name       Bytes    Tier
---------  -------  ------
hello.txt  22       Hot

--auth-mode login uses your Entra ID sign-in, not the account key. The two-minute wait gives the role assignment time to reach the storage service.

4Switch to GRS and see the paired region

Run this:

az storage account update --resource-group rg-saat-data --name $st --sku Standard_GRS -o none
az storage account show --resource-group rg-saat-data --name $st --query "{sku:sku.name, primary:primaryLocation, secondary:secondaryLocation, secondaryStatus:statusOfSecondary}" -o table

You should see something like this:

Sku           Primary       Secondary    SecondaryStatus
------------  ------------  -----------  -----------------
Standard_GRS  centralindia  southindia   available

South India is Central India’s pair, so that’s where the copy goes. If Azure says the change isn’t allowed at the moment, wait and try again; it happens occasionally.

5Switch back to LRS

GRS bills more, so go back for the lab:

az storage account update --resource-group rg-saat-data --name $st --sku Standard_LRS -o none
az storage account show --resource-group rg-saat-data --name $st --query "sku.name" -o tsv

You should see this:

Standard_LRS

✅ Checkpoint: Your storage account is Standard_LRS, StorageV2, Hot, TLS 1.2, no public access, and lab/hello.txt is in it. Its name is in C:\azure-lab\storage.txt.