Question
You have an Azure subscription. The subscription contains a virtual machine named VM1 that runs Windows Server and has the following disks:
• OS disk: Disk1
o Size: 512 GiB
o Free space: 260 GiB
o Encryption: SSE with PMK
o Storage type: Standard SSD
• Data disk: Disk2
o Size: 512 GiB
o Free space: 45 GiB
o Storage type: Standard HDD
o Encryption: Platform-managed key
You are planning a maintenance strategy for VM1.
You need to identify which task can be performed on Disk2 without causing downtime to VM1.
What should you do on Disk2?
- A. Increase the size. Correct
- B. Change the encryption type.
- C. Decrease the size.
- D. Change the storage type to Premium SSD.
Explanation
Increasing the size of Disk2 can be done without downtime. Azure supports "Expand without downtime" for managed data disks such as Disk2 (a 512 GiB Standard HDD, well under the 4 TiB limit for this feature), so you can raise the disk size while VM1 keeps running and then extend the volume in Windows. This feature applies only to data disks; expanding an OS disk still requires deallocating the VM.
The other options cause downtime: decreasing the size of a managed disk is not supported at all; changing the disk type (Standard HDD to Premium SSD) requires VM1 to be stopped (deallocated) first; and switching an attached disk from platform-managed keys to customer-managed keys requires the disk to be detached or the VM to be deallocated.
