AZ-104 Implement and Manage Storage Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

• ✗

  Locally redundant storage (LRS)

  Why it's wrong here

  Locally redundant storage (LRS) maintains three synchronous replicas within a single physical datacenter in one availability zone. This protects against drive and server failures but not against a datacenter-wide event such as a fire or flood, so an entire zone outage could cause data loss. Since the requirement expects resilience at the zone level, LRS fails to meet the stated availability need.

  When this WOULD be correct

  LRS would be correct if the question specified that the data must remain available only if a single server or storage node fails, and the company does not need protection against a datacenter-level failure. For example: 'A company stores temporary log files that can be regenerated; cost is the primary concern.'

• ✓

  Zone-redundant storage (ZRS)

  Why this is correct

  Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) replicates your data synchronously across three Azure availability zones within the same region. This design provides high availability even if an entire datacenter or availability zone fails, because copies remain in other zones. Since the requirement is in-region availability rather than geo-redundancy, ZRS is the optimal choice—it delivers the needed resilience without adding a secondary region.

• ✗

  Geo-redundant storage (GRS)

  Why it's wrong here

  Geo-redundant storage (GRS) asynchronously replicates your data to a paired secondary region, but it does not provide read access to that secondary copy unless failover occurs. While this protects against a region-wide disaster, it is more than the requirement demands; the finance team only needs availability within a single region. Choosing GRS adds cross-region dependencies and billing costs without answering the immediate availability question, so it is not the right fit.

  When this WOULD be correct

  A company requires data to remain available even if an entire Azure region fails, and they need the ability to read data from the secondary region only after Microsoft initiates a failover (no read access during normal operations).

• ✗

  Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS)

  Why it's wrong here

  Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) replicates data asynchronously to a paired secondary region and additionally grants read access to that replica. The question explicitly does not require read access from a secondary region, so choosing RA-GRS would introduce unnecessary geo-replication overhead, higher cost, and a more complex failover design. Even though RA-GRS offers strong durability, it goes beyond the stated scope, making it an incorrect selection.

  When this WOULD be correct

  A company requires data to remain available during a region-wide outage and needs read-only access to the secondary region for disaster recovery or compliance purposes. For example, a global application that must serve read requests from a secondary region if the primary fails.

Option-by-option analysis

Why each answer is right or wrong

Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The AZ-104 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.

Analysis generated from the official AZ-104blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”

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