- It allows you to upload very large text and binary files.
- It can be exposed for anonymous public access through a url.
- Provides client libraries and a REST interface.
- It is well suited to serving images and videos, storing backups, or hosting large datasets for analysis.
- Use it for streaming and random access scenarios and need to access data from anywhere.
- All blobs reside within a container, which is similar to a folder in a file system.
- You can further organize blobs into virtual directories.
- Blobs are roughly 30% or less the cost of Files per GB, and can store much greater total data per container.
Blocks Blobs
- They store text and binary data.
- One block can contain up to 50,000 blobs (100MB each, 4.7 TB total).
- When you upload a block, it is associated with the specified block blob.
- However, it does not become part of the blob until you commit a list of blocks that includes the new block's ID.
- Block blobs include features that help you manage large files over networks.
- With a block blob, you can upload multiple blocks in parallel to decrease upload time.
- Each block can include an MD5 hash to verify the transfer, so you can track upload progress and re-send blocks as needed.
- You can upload blocks in any order, and determine their sequence in the final block list commitment step.
Append Blobs
- Similar to block blobs but optimized for append operations (ideal for logs).
- When you modify an append blob, blocks are added to the end of the blob only.
- Updating or deleting of existing blocks is not supported.
- Unlike a block blob, an append blob does not expose its block IDs.
- Each block in an append blob can be up to a maximum of 4 MB, and an append blob can include up to 50,000 blocks.
- The maximum size of an append blob is therefore slightly more than 195 GB (4 MB X 50,000 blocks).
- Page blobs are a collection of 512-byte pages optimized for random read and write operations.