Daily cost for "Standard data transfer out" for a storage account suddenly increased sixfold

Question

I have a small Azure storage account that I have been using for a while. Daily costs associated with "Standard data transfer out" for this storage account suddenly increased sixfold about week ago. I can see this under Cost Analysis in daily view.

My usage patterns of this data have not changed and I don't understand where this increase is coming from. How can I get more detail (size of the data being transferred out, times, IP addresses etc)?

Any other tips how to troubleshoot this?

Also, can someone confirm that "standard data transfer out" is charged at $0.087 per GB (for the first 10TB)?

Azure prizing tables are not the easiest to understand.

Answer 1

Piotr Sobczak, thank you for posting this question.

To answer your question:

1. To troubleshoot the scenarios related to IP, time and other details related to storage access, Azure resource logs can be used, however it is not enabled by default. It needs to be enabled for capturing. For details, see Auditing data plane operations
2. Regarding the cost, the cost that is mentioned in the question ($0.087 per GB) is related to data transfer in/out of Azure Datacenters or bandwidth utilized. This may vary depending on the location, and destination. For details, see Bandwidth pricing Apart from this, there are costs associated with Azure Storge account too which again depends on the storage type, region and performance SKUs etc, which is available in the pricing calculator.

I would advise opening a support ticket with Azure Support to understand details of billing as applicable to your subscription. The Billing and Subscription Management support is available for free to all Azure Customers - Azure Support Plans.

Hope this helps.

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