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Copy managed disks to same or different subscription with CLI

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This article contains two scripts. The first script copies a managed disk that's using platform-managed keys to same or different subscription but in the same region. The second script copies a managed disk that's using customer-managed keys to the same or a different subscription in the same region. Either copy only works when the subscriptions are part of the same Microsoft Entra tenant.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

Prerequisites

Sample script

Launch Azure Cloud Shell

The Azure Cloud Shell is a free interactive shell that you can use to run the steps in this article. It has common Azure tools preinstalled and configured to use with your account.

To open the Cloud Shell, just select Try it from the upper right corner of a code block. You can also launch Cloud Shell in a separate browser tab by going to https://shell.azure.com.

When Cloud Shell opens, verify that Bash is selected for your environment. Subsequent sessions will use Azure CLI in a Bash environment, Select Copy to copy the blocks of code, paste it into the Cloud Shell, and press Enter to run it.

Sign in to Azure

Cloud Shell is automatically authenticated under the initial account signed-in with. Use the following script to sign in using a different subscription, replacing <Subscription ID> with your Azure Subscription ID. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

subscription="<subscriptionId>" # add subscription here

az account set -s $subscription # ...or use 'az login'

For more information, see set active subscription or log in interactively

Disks with platform-managed keys

#Provide the subscription Id of the subscription where managed disk exists
sourceSubscriptionId="<subscriptionId>"

#Provide the name of your resource group where managed disk exists
sourceResourceGroupName=mySourceResourceGroupName

#Provide the name of the managed disk
managedDiskName=myDiskName

#Set the context to the subscription Id where managed disk exists
az account set --subscription $sourceSubscriptionId

#Get the managed disk Id 
managedDiskId=$(az disk show --name $managedDiskName --resource-group $sourceResourceGroupName --query [id] -o tsv)

#If managedDiskId is blank then it means that managed disk does not exist.
echo 'source managed disk Id is: ' $managedDiskId

#Provide the subscription Id of the subscription where managed disk will be copied to
targetSubscriptionId=6492b1f7-f219-446b-b509-314e17e1efb0

#Name of the resource group where managed disk will be copied to
targetResourceGroupName=mytargetResourceGroupName

#Set the context to the subscription Id where managed disk will be copied to
az account set --subscription $targetSubscriptionId

#Copy managed disk to different subscription using managed disk Id
az disk create --resource-group $targetResourceGroupName --name $managedDiskName --source $managedDiskId

Disks with customer-managed keys

#Provide the subscription Id of the subscription where managed disk exists
sourceSubscriptionId="<subscriptionId>"

#Provide the name of your resource group where managed disk exists
sourceResourceGroupName=mySourceResourceGroupName

#Provide the name of the managed disk
managedDiskName=myDiskName

#Provide the name of the target disk encryption set
diskEncryptionSetName=myName

#Provide the target disk encryption set resource group
diskEncryptionResourceGroup=myGroup

#Set the context to the subscription Id where managed disk exists
az account set --subscription $sourceSubscriptionId

#Get the managed disk Id 
managedDiskId=$(az disk show --name $managedDiskName --resource-group $sourceResourceGroupName --query [id] -o tsv)

#If managedDiskId is blank then it means that managed disk does not exist.
echo 'source managed disk Id is: ' $managedDiskId

#Get the disk encryption set ID
diskEncryptionSetId=$(az disk-encryption-set show --name $diskEncryptionSetName --resource-group $diskEncryptionResourceGroup)

#Provide the subscription Id of the subscription where managed disk will be copied to
targetSubscriptionId=6492b1f7-f219-446b-b509-314e17e1efb0

#Name of the resource group where managed disk will be copied to
targetResourceGroupName=mytargetResourceGroupName

#Set the context to the subscription Id where managed disk will be copied to
az account set --subscription $targetSubscriptionId

#Copy managed disk to different subscription using managed disk Id and disk encryption set ID
#Add --location parameter to change the location
az disk create -g $targetResourceGroupName -n $managedDiskName --source $managedDiskId --disk-encryption-set $diskEncrpytonSetId

Clean up resources

Run the following command to remove the resource group, VM, and all related resources.

az group delete --name mySourceResourceGroupName

Sample reference

This script uses following commands to create a new managed disk in the target subscription using the Id of the source managed disk. Each command in the table links to command specific documentation.

Command Notes
az disk show Gets all the properties of a managed disk using the name and resource group properties of the managed disk. The Id property is used to copy the managed disk to different subscription.
az disk create Copies a managed disk by creating a new managed disk in different subscription using the Id and name the parent managed disk.

Next steps

Create a virtual machine from a managed disk

For more information on the Azure CLI, see Azure CLI documentation.

More virtual machine and managed disks CLI script samples can be found in the Azure Linux VM documentation.