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Reconfigure backup for data sources in an alternate vault

JohanFlth-6460 0 Reputation points
2025-10-22T06:13:09.5933333+00:00

My customer needs to change their backup storage (RSVs) from LRS to GRS.

Since that’s impossible, they need to move to new Recovery Service Vaults.

 

This can easily be done for VMs however VM SQL and FileShares are a bit different.

In the documentation below it says that you should be able to “unregister the underlying storage account” and keep the backup data in RSV.

 

The RSVs are not immutable.

When I unregister I get a warning the operation is data destructive.

The status changes to “soft deleted” and I’m able to register the workload to a new vault. Old recovery data still seem accessible.

The thing that bothers me is the warning message and the status “soft deleted”

Will backup remain according to backup policy retention times or is it in 14 days soft delete state?

 

https://free.blessedness.top/en-us/azure/business-continuity-center/tutorial-reconfigure-backup-alternate-vault

 

Azure Backup
Azure Backup
An Azure backup service that provides built-in management at scale.

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  1. Sandhya Kommineni 1,575 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-10-22T11:09:09.9233333+00:00

    Hello JohanFlth-6460,

    Thanks for posting your question in Microsoft Q&A forum

    You are correct changing the storage redundancy type (LRS → GRS) for an existing Recovery Services Vault (RSV) isn’t supported. To move to GRS, you’ll need to create a new vault and reconfigure the backups.

    When you unregister a backup item (for example, SQL in Azure VM or Azure File Share) from the old vault, Azure marks the backup data as soft deleted, even if it still visible in the portal.

    • The data is retained temporarily (default 14 days, configurable up to 180 days with Enhanced Soft Delete).
    • During this period, you can still restore or re-register the item.
    • Re-registration of soft deleted items: You can now register the items in soft deleted state with another vault. However, you can't register the same item with two vaults for active backups.

    This means that the data is retained temporarily (default 14 days) and does not continue to follow your configured backup policy retention. After the soft delete period (deleted data is retained for a specified duration (14-180 days) called soft delete retention period.) expires, the backup data is permanently deleted unless manually recovered earlier.

    Although the data may still appear visible in the old vault, it’s only retained under soft delete, not active protection. You won’t be able to continue scheduled backups or maintain retention as per the old backup policy.

    Refer document for more details on soft delete:

    Recommended Approach:

    1. Create new Recovery Services Vaults configured with GRS redundancy.
    2. Stop protection or unregister the existing backup items (such as SQL or File Share) from the old vault. You’ll see a warning indicating that the operation triggers soft delete.
    3. Register the workloads with the newly created GRS vaults and reconfigure backup policies as required.
    4. Keep the old vault for the duration of the soft delete retention period to allow for any potential restores.
    5. After confirming successful backup operations in the new vault, manually purge the soft-deleted items and remove the old vault if it’s no longer needed.

    Referral documents:

    I hope the provided answer is helpful, do let me know if you have any further questions on this Please accept as Yes & upvote if the answer is helpful so that it can help others in the community.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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