instant access snapshots

Instant access snapshots are a Microsoft Azure feature that allows you to create and use snapshots of Premium SSD v2 (Pv2) and Ultra Disk storage immediately, without waiting for the background data copy (hydration) to complete. This capability, now generally available as of mid-February 2026, significantly reduces restore and provisioning times for mission-critical workloads. Instead of waiting hours for a snapshot to fully copy, you can attach a disk created from an instant access snapshot to a running virtual machine right away, while Azure finishes the data transfer in the background. This closes a gap for Azure's highest-performance block storage, enabling faster disaster recovery, testing, and scaling scenarios.