General availability: Azure Cool Blob storage

Cool Blob storage is now generally available. Cool storage is low-cost storage for object data that is infrequently accessed and long lived​. Example use cases include backups, media content, scientific data, compliance data, and archival data. In general, any data that lives for a longer period of time and is accessed less than once a month is a candidate for Cool storage.

With the new Blob storage accounts, you can choose between Hot and Cool access tiers to store object data based on its access pattern. Capabilities of Blob storage accounts include:

• Cost effectiveness: You can now store your less frequently accessed data in the Cool access tier at a low storage cost (as low as $0.01 per gigabyte in some regions), and your more frequently accessed data in the Hot access tier at a lower access cost. For more details on regional pricing, see the​ Azure Storage pricing page.
• Compatibility: We have designed Blob storage accounts to be 100 percent API compatible with our existing Blob storage offering, so you can make use of the new storage accounts in existing applications seamlessly.
• Performance: Data in the Cool access tier and data in the Hot access tier have a similar performance profile in terms of latency and throughput.
• Availability: The Hot access tier guarantees a high availability of 99.9 percent, whereas the Cool access tier offers a slightly lower availability of 99 percent. With the RA-GRS redundancy option, we provide a higher read SLA of 99.99 percent for the Hot access tier and 99.9 percent for the Cool access tier.
• Durability: Both access tiers provide the same high durability that you have come to expect from Azure Storage and the same data replication options that you use today.
• Scalability and Security: Blob storage accounts provide the same scalability and security features as our existing offering.
• Global reach: Blob storage accounts are available for use starting today in most Azure regions. You can find the updated list of available regions on the Azure services by region page.

For more details on how to start using this feature, please see our getting-started documentation.