Match each Azure storage redundancy option to its description.
Drag a concept onto its matching description — or click a concept then click the description.
3 copies within a single datacenter
3 copies across 3 availability zones in a region
LRS in primary region + LRS in paired secondary region
GRS with read access to secondary region
ZRS in primary region + LRS in paired secondary region
Answer choices
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
LRS: Replicates data three times within a single data center in the primary region.
Azure Storage offers several redundancy options: LRS (local), ZRS (zone), GRS (geo), and RA-GRS (geo with read access). Common confusions include mixing LRS and ZRS, or assuming all geo-replicated options provide read access.
Answer analysis
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
LRS: Replicates data three times within a single data center in the primary region.
Why this is correct
Locally Redundant Storage (LRS) replicates each write synchronously three times within a single physical data center in the primary region. This yields 11 nines of durability over a given year, but because all copies reside in one fault domain, a fire, flood, or datacenter failure can destroy all replicas. It is the cheapest and lowest-durability Azure Storage redundancy option, suitable for non-critical apps or dev/test workloads.
ZRS: Replicates data synchronously across three Azure availability zones in the primary region.
Why this is correct
Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) synchronously copies data across three distinct Azure availability zones within a primary region. Because zones are physically separated and have independent power, cooling, and networking, ZRS survives an entire zone failure; writes are acknowledged only after being durably written to all three zones. It offers durability of 12 nines but does not protect against a region-wide outage.
GRS: Replicates data to a secondary region asynchronously, with three copies in each region.
Why this is correct
Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS) first stores three synchronous copies in the primary region, then asynchronously replicates the data to a paired secondary region, where it creates an additional three copies. This protects against a whole-region outage, but asynchronous lag means that writes made shortly before a regional disaster may be lost. The secondary endpoint is inaccessible for reads unless you initiate a failover or use RA-GRS.
LRS: Replicates data across multiple availability zones.
Why it's wrong here
This statement is incorrect because LRS places all replicas within the same data center, not across availability zones. Cross-zone replication is the defining feature of ZRS, which requires three separate buildings and fault domains. LRS provides no zone-level resilience, so a full data center loss results in permanent data loss.
RA-GRS: Provides read access to the secondary region data at all times.
Why this is correct
Read-Access Geo-Redundant Storage (RA-GRS) inherits GRS's synchronous primary copies (three in the primary region) and asynchronous secondary copies (three in the paired region), but additionally exposes a read-only endpoint in the secondary region. This enables reads from the secondary at all times without a failover, though writes still go to the primary. It is useful for geo-distributed read latency and high availability, but secondary data may lag behind primary due to asynchronous replication.
GRS: Provides read access to the secondary region without failover.
Why it's wrong here
Standard GRS does not allow read access to the secondary region; the secondary copy exists only for geo-failover recovery. To read from the secondary without initiating a failover, you must upgrade to RA-GRS, which adds a read-only geo-redundant endpoint. Therefore, this statement incorrectly attributes RA-GRS's capability to plain GRS.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-305 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-305 exam.