Hey everyone! We're venturing into Azure services for the first time and need some advice. We're looking to host around 6,000 public photos for our Power BI reports, Excel IMAGE() functions, Power Apps, and other purposes. Currently, we're using WordPress with web hosting to store these images, but this setup is causing us headaches with multiple subscriptions for web hosting, domain names, and SSL certificate renewals. So, I've been considering Azure Blob Storage as a solution.
Here's what I've worked out so far: We're expecting to host around 6,000 images, each averaging about 600kb, which totals up to around 3.6GB of required storage. I've figured that read operations would only be a fraction of what Azure suggests, and we won't have any write operations since it's just for storing images. We'll be using the hot access tier and LRS redundancy.
My main concern is the outgoing bandwidth. When I ran the numbers on the Azure Pricing calculator, I saw that the first 100GB of outbound data transfer shows a cost of $0, but I know there should be a charge of $0.087 per GB after that. We're planning to stay under 20GB of bandwidth monthly, and I think that would still be cheaper than what we currently pay for web hosting. Can anyone clarify how the outbound data transfer pricing actually works? Thanks!
3 Answers
Hey! So, the reason you see $0 for the first 100GB of egress is because Azure offers that for free. The charge of $0.087 per GB applies only after you exceed the 100GB limit. It’s always a good idea to check the official pricing page for the most accurate information, instead of relying on any AI tools like Copilot. Just stay aware of that limit, and you should be in good shape! Here’s a link to the pricing details: [Pricing - Bandwidth | Microsoft Azure](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/bandwidth)
Just a heads up, I had a similar situation at my job where the public could upload files, and someone uploaded a dangerous file type, which led to some big security issues. I recommend looking into a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to sanitize uploads. Be careful with what kinds of files you allow!
I appreciate the warning! In my case, the images will be managed through cPanel or FTP, so the public won’t directly upload anything; they’ll just see the images via an endpoint.
For a simple image hosting solution, if you have minimal ingress traffic, consider keeping the functionality in Azure but using an alternative storage solution for publishing. Some providers like Scaleway offer competitive pricing, even if their performance can be a mixed bag.
Thanks for the clarification! I also have a personal Azure subscription for testing, and I was wondering if I’ll incur any charges if I’m just clicking around and not actively using services. If I store under 100MB in Blob storage, will there be any charges for that?