Are unattached managed disks still billed after a VM is deleted?

Yes. Azure leaves a deleted VM's disks in place by default to guard against accidental data loss, and they are billed until you delete them. A managed disk with an empty ManagedBy property isn't attached to any VM, which makes a quick list to review with each client.

How long does it take to restore data from the archive tier?

Archived blobs are offline until they are rehydrated to hot, cool or cold. Standard priority can take up to 15 hours for objects under 10 GB; high priority may finish within an hour but costs more. Re-tiering within 180 days of archiving triggers an early deletion charge.

Can one lifecycle policy cover all of a client's storage accounts?

No. A lifecycle management policy works within a single storage account, though its rules can target the whole account, specific containers or filtered blobs. For the same operations across many accounts, Microsoft points to Azure Storage Actions.

Coverage

Azure Storage cost optimisation for MSPs

Storage bills grow quietly. Rarely touched data sits in expensive access tiers, and capacity swells with logs, old blob versions and soft-deleted data nobody planned to keep. Microsoft's guidance is to monitor usage continuously and have a plan for expiring data or moving it to cheaper tiers.

18

automated finders for storage

Read-only, across every connected client tenant, tied to real billing data.

Modernise
Remove unused
Rightsizing
Off-hours schedules

Where storage spend goes to waste

The main cost levers Microsoft documents for storage, and the ones an MSP should check across every client.

Match every blob to the right tier

Hot suits data in active use; cool, cold and archive store data more cheaply in exchange for higher access charges. In general-purpose v2 accounts, data should stay in cool, cold or archive for at least 30, 90 and 180 days respectively, or a prorated early deletion charge applies. ^[2]

Automate tiering with lifecycle policies

Lifecycle management rules move blobs, previous versions and snapshots to cooler tiers once they go unused, and delete them at end of life. The policies themselves are free; tier changes are billed as standard operations. A new or edited policy can take up to 24 hours to take effect. ^[3]

Pay only for the redundancy you need

LRS is the cheapest option, ZRS spreads copies across availability zones, and GRS or GZRS add a secondary region. Data that is easy to rebuild may only need LRS. Every service in a storage account shares one redundancy setting, so separate workloads with different needs. ^[4]

Remove orphaned managed disks

Deleting a VM doesn't remove its disks by default, so orphaned disks build up and keep costing money. Each disk's LastOwnershipUpdateTime shows when it was detached, which helps separate deliberate spares from forgotten leftovers. ^[5]

Rightsize disk types and capacity

Managed disks are billed on provisioned size, rounded up to the nearest offered size, however much data is written. Keep Premium SSD for high-performance production workloads, and use Standard SSD or Standard HDD for dev, test, backups and other non-critical work. ^[6]

Pick the right Azure Files model and tier

On the provisioned model you pay for the storage, IOPS and throughput you provision whether you use them or not. On pay-as-you-go shares, tiers trade storage price against transaction price, so a busy share in Cool can cost more than one in Transaction Optimized. ^[7]

How Cerberus Cloud covers storage

Cerberus Cloud runs 18 automated finders for storage across every connected client tenant. Each one ties a technical signal to real billing data, so findings arrive with an estimated recoverable value, ranked by impact, effort and risk, with evidence and remediation scripts for your engineers to review.

Access is read-only, so nothing changes in a client environment until your team decides it should. See how it works or the multi-tenant portfolio view.

Modernise
Remove unused
Rightsizing
Off-hours schedules

Frequently asked questions

Are unattached managed disks still billed after a VM is deleted?: Yes. Azure leaves a deleted VM's disks in place by default to guard against accidental data loss, and they are billed until you delete them. A managed disk with an empty ManagedBy property isn't attached to any VM, which makes a quick list to review with each client.
How long does it take to restore data from the archive tier?: Archived blobs are offline until they are rehydrated to hot, cool or cold. Standard priority can take up to 15 hours for objects under 10 GB; high priority may finish within an hour but costs more. Re-tiering within 180 days of archiving triggers an early deletion charge.
Can one lifecycle policy cover all of a client's storage accounts?: No. A lifecycle management policy works within a single storage account, though its rules can target the whole account, specific containers or filtered blobs. For the same operations across many accounts, Microsoft points to Azure Storage Actions.

See storage findings on a sample portfolio

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Sources

Last checked 15 October 2026. Product details change; tell us if something here is out of date.

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