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Microsoft Launches Ephemeral OS Disks with NVMe for Up to 10X Faster Performance on Azure v6 VMs

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ailona

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May 29, 2025

Microsoft announces the General Availability of Ephemeral OS Disks with NVMe placement for Azure v6 VMs, offering up to 10X faster OS disk performance. Ideal for stateless workloads, this feature enables ultra-low latency, rapid VM reimaging, and supports all image types on the latest v6 VM series. :

Microsoft Rolls Out Ephemeral OS Disk Support for Azure v6 VMs

Microsoft just announced the General Availability of Ephemeral OS Disks with NVMe disk placement for Azure’s latest v6 VM series. This update promises to turbocharge your VM performance, especially for stateless workloads.

What’s New with Ephemeral OS Disks?

Ephemeral OS Disks are a game-changer because they store the OS disk directly on the VM’s local NVMe storage. This eliminates network latency, delivering up to 10X faster disk operations compared to traditional Managed OS disks.

“Up to 10X higher OS disk performance compared to Managed OS disks—significantly boosting VM speed and responsiveness.”

Since these disks are non-persistent, they’re ideal for workloads that prioritize speed and scalability over data retention. Think microservices, batch processing, and scale-out applications.

Major Updates in the v6 VM Series

The GA release covers popular v6 VM families like Dadsv6, Ddsv6, and others. These VMs now fully leverage NVMe storage for OS disks, ensuring the lowest latency and fastest VM boot and reset times.

Key benefits include:

Lower read/write latency with local NVMe storage
Fast VM reimaging—reset your VM in seconds
Support for all image types: Marketplace, custom, and Azure Compute Gallery

“Reset VMs to their original state in seconds—perfect for stateless workloads.”

How to Deploy Ephemeral OS Disks on Azure v6 VMs

Getting started is straightforward. Microsoft provides ARM templates, Azure CLI commands, and PowerShell scripts to deploy VMs with Ephemeral OS Disks using NVMe placement.

For example, using 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

This flexibility makes it easy to integrate Ephemeral OS Disks into your existing CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code setups.

Why It Matters for Tech Pros

If you run stateless or scale-out workloads, this update means faster VM startups, quicker resets, and improved overall responsiveness. It’s a big win for developers and IT pros aiming to optimize cloud performance without compromising agility.

Ready to boost your Azure VM performance? Dive into the new Ephemeral OS Disk feature and see how it can transform your cloud workloads.

Ephemeral OS Disks are stored locally on VM NVMe storage, eliminating network latency.

Supports Azure v6 VM series including Dadsv6, Ddsv6, and more for enhanced performance.

Perfect for scale-out, microservices, and batch processing workloads requiring fast disk I/O.

Quick VM reset capability enables rapid reimaging in seconds for stateless applications.

Deployment supported via ARM templates, Azure CLI, and PowerShell commands for easy integration.

From the New blog articles in Microsoft Community Hub