Is Azure Cloud Service Local Storage access faster than Blob Storage

Question

I'm architecting a application for azure cloud services.

This application is going to load some configuration files and other support files possibly multiple times... like DLL's, XAMLX files and others XMLs...

So for the sake of performance I was wondering if copying a blob to the cloud service local storage and then working with it would be more performatic (and possibly cheaper) than loading it from blob storage directly?

PS: I do know that local storage is not persistant and if the instance crash i loose it all, thats why everything is saved on blobs first...

Answer 1

Local storage is a hard drive it is faster.

If these files are dynamic meaning they get created after app deployment the you need to use blob storage. But I would persist them locally for performance if the app needs them on the server

If they aren't dynamic then add them into your website in a relevant place app_data or another folder.

If the files are been served to client and don't need security serve them directly from blob storage.

EDIT Details of local drive speeds

I used a small instance in production environment for these tests. A small instance doesn't get the highest I/O they say it's medium. Also I performed these tests on a West Europe instance. You might get faster performance from one of the newer data centers in the US.

Local Storage

Operating System Drive

Application Drive