Microsoft launches Azure postal service in UK

Azure Import/Export lets customers send their hard drive to Microsoft which will upload it to its public cloud

Microsoft has launched its Azure Import/Export service which allows Azure customers to post their hard drives to the vendor and have their data moved to Microsoft's cloud.

For a flat fee, £59.63 in the UK, customers struggling to upload large amounts of data to Microsoft's public cloud can arrange for their hard drive to be transported to Microsoft, which will use its high-speed internal network to transfer the data and send the hard drive back.

The launch of the Azure Import/Export service in the UK comes after Microsoft opened its first UK datacentres last year. The service has been available in the US since November 2013.

In a blog post Andres Juarez, principle programme manager at Microsoft, said: "The Azure Import/Export Service enables you to move large amounts of on-premise data into and out of your Azure Storage accounts.

"It does this by enabling you to securely ship hard disk drives directly to our Azure datacentres. Once we receive the drives we'll automatically transfer the data to or from your Azure storage account.

"This enables you to import or export massive amounts of data more quickly and cost effectively and not be constrained by available network bandwidth."

Microsoft's postal service rivals Amazon Web Services' snowmobile - a 45ft-long container which can be used to transfer up to 100pb - which is available in all AWS' datacentre regions.

The launch of the Import/Export Service comes two months after Microsoft slashed UK prices for a range of Azure storage offerings in February.