Announcing General Availability: Ephemeral OS Disk support for v6 Azure VMs

Today, Microsoft is excited to announce the General Availability (GA) of Ephemeral OS Disks with NVMe disk placement for the latest generation of Azure v6 Virtual Machines (VMs), including the Dadsv6, Ddsv6, and related series. This feature brings up to 10X higher OS disk performance compared to Managed OS disks—significantly boosting VM speed and responsiveness for your stateless workloads.

What Are Ephemeral OS Disks?

Ephemeral OS disks are created directly on the local storage of your VM instead of remote Azure Storage. That means no network latency and up to 10X faster disk operations. These disks are non-persistent, making them perfect for scenarios where performance, scalability, and fast reimaging matter more than long-term data retention.

Key benefits:

• Lower read/write latency: OS disk reads/writes happen directly on local NVMe storage.
• Fast Reimage: Reset VMs to their original state in seconds.
• Designed for stateless workloads: Perfect for scale-out scenarios, microservices, and batch processing.
• Supported on all images: Marketplace, custom, and Azure Compute Gallery images.

Now Generally Available on v6 VM Series

With this GA release, you can now use Ephemeral OS Disks with NVMe disk placement on the latest v6 VM series, including:

• Dadsv6
• Ddsv6
• Daldsv6
• Dldsv6
• ...and more

This unlocks the full performance potential of NVMe-based local storage for your OS disks, delivering the lowest possible latency and fastest VM operations.

How to Deploy: Sample Templates and Commands

Below are quick-start examples for deploying a VM with Ephemeral OS Disk using NVMe disk placement.

ARM Template

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {},
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines",
      "name": "myVirtualMachine",
      "location": "East US 2",
      "apiVersion": "2024-03-01",
      "properties": {
        "hardwareProfile": {
          "vmSize": "Standard_D2ads_v6"
        },
        "storageProfile": {
          "osDisk": {
            "diffDiskSettings": {
              "option": "Local",
              "placement": "NVMeDisk"
            },
            "caching": "ReadOnly",
            "createOption": "FromImage"
          },
          "imageReference": {
            "publisher": "MicrosoftWindowsServer",
            "offer": "WindowsServer",
            "sku": "2016-Datacenter-smalldisk",
            "version": "latest"
          }
        },
        "osProfile": {
          "computerName": "myvirtualmachine",
          "adminUsername": "azureuser",
          "adminPassword": "P@ssw0rd!"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Azure CLI

az vm create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup  \
  --name myVM \
  --image imageName \
  --size Standard_D2ads_v6 \
  --ephemeral-os-disk-placement NVMeDisk \
  --ephemeral-os-disk true

PowerShell

Set-AzVMOSDisk -DiffDiskSetting Local -DiffDiskPlacement NVMeDisk -Caching ReadOnly

Ready to take advantage of Ephemeral OS Disks on your v6 VMs?  

- Learn how to deploy Ephemeral OS Disks

- Frequently Asked Questions

We look forward to seeing what you build with this new capability!  

For feedback or questions, please comment below or reach out via your Microsoft support channels.