Windows machines that are created in Azure automatically get a VHD of 130 Gb.Some things you should knowīefore I walk you through the process of actually doing it, there are a few things you should know about Azure VHD
Shrink the files in the templates folder so that the copy will only take about 5 minutes (or less). Worst of it all is that the Active Directory server is actually using 12 Gb and the other machine is using 23 Gb. Not really a problem, but starting up our ARM template, starts with copying 2 of these files to a new Storage account, eating the first 15 minutes of our deployment (yes, even with AzCopy). It works like a charm, but the VHD, that was created by Azure, is 130 Gb. We do this at least 1 time per day, but sometimes more. Every time we spin up a new environment with ARM, we copy the VHD to a new storage account and use ARM to attach the existing VHD to the newly created machine. To overcome this, we created a VHD that has everything on it and stored this VHD in an Azure Storage Account as a template. 2 of the machines are preconfigured and cannot be automated (not now at least) with ARM and DSC to create everything from code (which is of course the best alternative. The environment consists of multiple machines. At a customer I am helping to set up a pipeline to spin up a complete new environment every night.