Does Azure Site Recovery for VM require GRS-enabled Recovery Services Vault?

Question

Does Azure Site Recovery for VM require GRS-enabled Recovery Services Vault?

Kanie-0317 120

Hi,

Regarding to Azure Site Recovery for virtual machines (not backup-related):

When creating a Recovery Services Vault (RSV) for Site Recovery, is it necessary to enable Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS), or is Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) sufficient?
If I do enable GRS, I see there's a cross-region restore capability under the backup section, does that setting have any effect on VM disaster recovery via Site Recovery, or is it unrelated? Do I need to enable this feature?

Only referring to Site Recovery (replication & regional failover), not Backup.

Appreciate it any expert could help clarify this, thank you!

Accepted answer

0 additional answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Jose Benjamin Solis Nolasco 3,511

@Kanie Almasi Hello I hope you are doing well,

No, Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS) is not required to use Azure Site Recovery (ASR) for VM replication. You can use Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) with ASR — it will work just fine for replicating virtual machines across regions or availability zones.

Azure Site Recovery (ASR) does not require a Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS)-enabled Recovery Services Vault (RSV) for virtual machine replication and failover. Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) is sufficient for ASR to function properly.

Key Points:

LRS vs. GRS for ASR:
- LRS keeps data replicated within a single Azure region, which is enough for ASR replication and failover within that region.
- GRS replicates data to a secondary region, but this is primarily relevant for Azure Backup, not ASR.
Cross-Region Restore (CRR) and ASR:
- The CRR feature in Azure Backup allows restoring backups in a secondary region, but this does not impact ASR failover.
- ASR handles live replication and disaster recovery failover, independent of backup restore settings.
When to Consider GRS:
- If your disaster recovery strategy involves Azure Backup for long-term retention, enabling GRS might be useful.
- If your focus is ASR for VM replication and failover, LRS is sufficient.

{38000B69-0D00-4FA3-AF70-D0B507B81818}

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-create-recovery-services-vault#how-to-change-from-grs-to-lrs-after-configuring-backup

For more details, you can check Microsoft's official documentation on Azure Site Recovery and Recovery Services Vault storage options.

😊 If my answer helped you resolve your issue, please consider marking it as the correct answer. This helps others in the community find solutions more easily. Thanks!

Kanie-0317 120 Reputation points

2025-06-05T12:56:32.96+00:00

Hi @Jose Benjamin Solis Nolasco ,

That explanation was really clear, thank you!

So in summary, choosing GRS and enable cross-region restore is mainly for backup feature, it lets me restore my resources to the secondary region if needed. But as long as I’m using Site Recovery, it already supports recreating a VM in the secondary region by default when I trigger a failover, right?

Another question is that if I’ve already chosen GRS, then why is it optional to enable cross-region restore (CSR)? Doesn’t selecting GRS imply that I’d normally want the ability to restore in another region? Why would I be allowed to disable it?
Jose Benjamin Solis Nolasco 3,511 Reputation points

2025-06-05T14:11:20.18+00:00

Enabling CSR comes with higher costs and complexity such as maintaining configuration for secondary-region restores, but is mostly use when you are conducting drills

With CSR( Cross Region Restore) , your recovery services vault is geo-redundant, so data is copied automatically to your secondary region.

trigger a failover, right? yes thats the way I used to do it

So why is optiona? Not everyone needs to restore to a secondary region unless there's a compliance or business continuity requeriment. So microsoft lets you opt otherwise GRS Just works as good

At the end if you configuration es enable with GRS everything should work fine CRS is a optional thing depending in your business needs..

I learned a lot on Reddit when i was in the middle of implement it back on 2022.

Let me know if you need more details i'll try my best to answer.
Kanie-0317 120 Reputation points

2025-06-05T15:21:25.6633333+00:00

Thank you @Jose Benjamin Solis Nolasco ,

Now I see why this setting is needed, really appreciate the explanation!

Share via

Does Azure Site Recovery for VM require GRS-enabled Recovery Services Vault?

0 additional answers

Your answer