How to attach an SSD (premium) disk to my NC6 - Data Science VM in Microsoft Azure?

Question

I have deployed a Data Science Virtual Machine on Azure on an N-series instance, which comes with a Standard HDD as the Storage Account Type.

However I would like to include an SSD, but I have not been able to do so.

What I have tried: In the Virtual Machine menu, on Disks, I can attach an extra disk, and create a new one, but it only allows for standard storage disk (HDD) and the option for a premium (SSD) is blocked.

Creating a new storage account I can select a premium storage (SSD), however I cannot link this to my existing VM. This new storage account does not appear between the options when choosing to attach a new disk.

Any help?

Answer 1

Unfortunately the solution is that you may have to use NCv2 or NCv3 which supports premium storage (SSD) and more faster GPU processors (Nvidia P100, V100). Another alternative is to create a separate blob on premium storage and mount that on a Ubuntu DSVM using blobfuse that comes prebuilt into the Ubuntu DSVM. BTW - The NC6 also comes with locally attached temporary storage on SSD (340GB) so you can use it for staging. The data will not presist across reboots. So it is only suitable for work files and will need to be explictly copied to persistent storage. Hope one of these options work for your scenario.