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.

• ✗

  LRS

  Why it's wrong here

  Locally redundant storage (LRS) creates three synchronous copies of your data within a single physical datacenter (or storage stamp) in the same availability zone. Because all replicas share the same infrastructure, an outage affecting that zone—such as a fire, flooding, or cooling failure—can destroy all three copies at once. Therefore, LRS offers no protection against a zone-level failure and is insufficient for the stated requirement.

  When this WOULD be correct

  Choose LRS when cost is the primary concern and the application can tolerate data loss from a single data center failure, such as for non-critical test data or temporary logs that are not essential for business continuity.

• ✓

  ZRS

  Why this is correct

  Zone-redundant storage (ZRS) synchronously replicates your data across three Azure availability zones within the primary region, ensuring that a single zone failure does not compromise availability or durability. Because the replicas are in different zones, the storage account remains accessible even if one entire datacenter goes down. This directly matches the stated requirement of protecting against a zone-level outage while avoiding the cost and complexity of geo-replication.

• ✗

  GRS

  Why it's wrong here

  Geo-redundant storage (GRS) copies your data to a paired secondary region that is typically hundreds of miles away, offering protection against region-wide disasters. However, this goes beyond the stated need because it introduces cross-region replication latency, higher storage costs, and a failover process that may not be instantaneous. GRS also defaults to LRS within the primary region, so it does not inherently provide zone-level redundancy within that region unless you explicitly choose ZRS as the primary replication type.

• ✗

  RA-GRS

  Why it's wrong here

  Read-access geo-redundant storage (RA-GRS) includes all the characteristics of GRS, but additionally provides a public read-only endpoint in the paired secondary region. This read-access capability is specifically designed for scenarios that require continuous access to data during a regional outage, which is more than the requirement of merely surviving a zone failure. Moreover, RA-GRS still inherits GRS's lack of native zone-level redundancy in the primary region and carries the same higher costs, making it an over-engineered and mismatched solution.

  When this WOULD be correct

  RA-GRS would be correct if the question required read access to data during an outage in the primary region, even if the secondary region is in a different geographic location. For example: 'You need to ensure that log data can be read from a secondary location if the primary region becomes unavailable.'

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?”

Go deeper

Related to this question