Identify unattached Azure disks - Azure portal - Azure Virtual Machines (2024)

Article
04/25/2022

Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ Windows VMs ✔️ Flexible scale sets ✔️ Uniform scale sets

When you delete a virtual machine (VM) in Azure, by default, any disks that are attached to the VM aren't deleted. This helps to prevent data loss due to the unintentional deletion of VMs. After a VM is deleted, you will continue to pay for unattached disks. This article shows you how to find and delete any unattached disks using the Azure portal, and reduce unnecessary costs. Deletions are permanent, you will not be able to recover data once you delete a disk.

Managed disks: Find and delete unattached disks

If you have unattached managed disks and no longer need the data on them, the following process explains how to find them from the Azure portal:

Sign in to the Azure portal.
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Search for and select Disks.
On the Disks blade, you are presented with a list of all your disks.
Select the disk you'd like to delete, this brings you to the individual disk's blade.
On the individual disk's blade, confirm the disk state is unattached, then select Delete.

Unmanaged disks: Find and delete unattached disks

Unmanaged disks are VHD files that are stored as page blobs in Azure storage accounts.

Next steps

If you'd like an automated way of finding and deleting unattached storage accounts, see our CLI or PowerShell articles.

For more information, see Delete a storage account and Identify Orphaned Disks Using PowerShell

FAQs

Identify unattached Azure disks - Azure portal - Azure Virtual Machines? ›

Sign in to the Azure portal. Search for and select Disks (Classic). You are presented with a list of all your unmanaged disks. Any disk that has "-" in the Attached to column is an unattached disk.

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How do I find unattached disks in Azure portal? ›

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How to identify disk in Azure VM? ›

1 answer

Open Azure CLI command line.
Run the command az vm show -g ftp -n ftp. Sample output: "osDisk": { "caching": "ReadWrite", ...
In the above output : if you see VHD is null - This confirms it is a Managed Disk.
in the VHD section if you see some URI - This confirms it is an Unmanaged disk.

Jan 11, 2021

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How to identify managed and unmanaged disks in Azure? ›

Follow the below steps to determine the disk type:

Login to the Azure portal.
Select the VM in question.
Select the disk to check. Look at the disk's URL.
An Unmanaged Disk's URL will look like: /storage_account_name.blob.core.windows.net/VM_name/VM_name.vhd.
A Managed Disk's URL will look like:

Dec 19, 2021

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How do I delete all unattached disks in Azure? ›

First, run the script by setting the deleteUnattachedDisks variable to 0. This action lets you find and view all the unattached managed disks. After you review all the unattached disks, run the script again and set the deleteUnattachedDisks variable to 1. This action lets you delete all the unattached managed disks.

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How do I detach a disk from Azure virtual machine? ›

Detach a data disk using the portal

Select the virtual machine that has the data disk you want to detach. Under Settings, select Disks. In the Disks pane, to the far right of the data disk that you would like to detach, select the detach button to detach.

How do I find unused resources in Azure portal? ›

You can try to use the tool Azure Orphaned Resources to monitor the unused resources under your Azure subscription. Follow the steps mentioned here to configure the Azure Workbooks with this tool on Azure Portal. Can we see name of the resource or we can sse only number of resources that are unused? @MiniSu, Yes.

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How do I check my disk on a virtual machine? ›

Solution

Take a snapshot of the OS disk of the affected VM as a backup. ...
Attach the OS disk to a recovery VM.
On the recovery VM, run Check Disk on the attached OS disk. ...
After the Check Disk completes, detach the disk from the recovery VM, and then re-attach the disk to the affected VM as an OS disk.

Mar 27, 2024

Know More ›

How do I identify a disk? ›

Steps to check disk drive name and information in Windows 10

Press Windows Key + R.
Type msinfo32. Select OK or press Enter.
Go under Components, Storage, Drives, or Disks. The information under Disks has more details.

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How many disks can be attached to Azure VM? ›

For Azure managed disks:

Resource	Limit
Standard managed disks	50,000
Standard SSD managed disks	50,000
Premium SSD managed disks	50,000
Premium SSD v2 managed disks	1,000

6 more rows

May 23, 2023

Keep Reading ›

What is the difference between managed and unmanaged Azure VM? ›

Difference Between Azure Managed Disks and Unmanaged Disks

In Unmanaged Disk storage, you must create a storage account in resources to hold the disks (VHD files) for your Virtual Machines. With Managed Disk Storage, you are no longer limited by the storage account limits. You can have one storage account per region.

How do I access Azure managed disk? ›

Follow these steps:

Sign in to the Azure portal.
Search for and select Virtual machines.
Select a virtual machine from the list.
On the Virtual machine pane, select Disks.
On the Disks pane, select Create and attach a new disk.
In the drop-downs for the new disk, make the selections you want, and name the disk.

More items...

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What is a managed disk in Azure VM? ›

Azure Managed Disks are high-performance, durable block storage designed to be used with Azure Virtual Machines and Azure VMware Solution.

How do I recover a deleted managed disk in Azure? ›

In the Azure portal, go to Backup center. Select Backup instances under the Manage section. From the list of backup instances, select the disk backup instance for which you want to perform the restore operation. Alternately, you can perform this operation from the Backup vault you used to configure backup for the disk.

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How do I unmount a data disk in Azure? ›

Click Azure VMs. A list of the Azure virtual machines and information about the mounted virtual disks appear. Open the ellipsis menu for an Azure virtual machine and select Unmount.

Get More Info Here ›

Where are the operating disks and data disks stored in Azure? ›

The operating system disk is created from an image, and both the operating system disk and the image are actually virtual hard disks (VHDs) stored in an Azure storage account. Virtual machines also can have one or more data disks, that are also stored as VHDs.

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How do I access my Azure disk? ›

You can use Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) to assign specific permissions for a managed disk to one or more users. Managed disks expose a variety of operations, including read, write (create/update), delete, and retrieving a shared access signature (SAS) URI for the disk.

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How do I view the contents of my Azure disk? ›

To see its contents, you can open the storage emulator and choose to view cloud drive contents (which opens an explorer window to the correct temporary directory). See this article for more details. Note: The Windows Azure Drives lab is also in the Windows Azure Training Kit.

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How do I check disk encryption status in Azure portal? ›

Verify with the Azure CLI by using the az vm encryption show command. Verify with Azure PowerShell by using the Get-AzVmDiskEncryptionStatus cmdlet. Select the VM, then click on Disks under the Settings heading to verify encryption status in the portal. In the chart under Encryption, you'll see if it's enabled.

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