Azure Cosmos DB - Unlimited Space or Not?

Question

Setting up our first instance of Cosmos DB, we are keenly interested in it's ability to store large amounts of data. When setting up a collection, I have the option of 10GB or Unlimited. I choose Unlimited. However, when I begin to explore the collection, it says my data max is 100GB. This is very confusing. I'm going to be importing a SQL Server database that is over 500GB in size and which we expect to grow to 1TB in less than a year. So that "Unlimited" size is what we need.

How do I actually get Unlimited and why does it let me select it when setting up the collection if it's not truly available to me?

EDIT: I would just like to clarify something: Microsoft very explicitly instructs Azure customers to post any questions about Azure services either here on Stack Overflow with Azure tagging, or to their Twitter support. I don't have Twitter, so here I am, plus, it's always great to get help from others outside of Microsoft who have the experience. For those of you who downvoted this because you think it's a question that should be directed to MS support and not here, educate yourselves. Then find yourselves a life outside of being Stack Overflow elitists who like to hop from page to page "teaching us low-rep newbies a lesson." To the other 99% of you who are always very helpful - Thank you. Thank you very sincerely. I hope I can one day return the favor. End rant.

Answer 1

As David explained, 100 GB is just the default initial size for your collection and it's designed to scale indefinitely as your data grows.

You are charged only for the storage you consume and not the reserved capacity. So if you want to start off with 500 GB of collection, please file a support ticket from Azure portal. Click on "?" mark and then select Help + support button.

You can have the capability of growing this collection as your data grows.

Please let me know if you have any other queries.

Answer 2

The portal simply shows a default of 100GB. Your collection will grow as you grow your content size.

For practical purposes, it does let you grow your collections as large as you want - but there are physical limits (e.g. hardware capacity).