Can I restore a VM when a backup is in progress?

Question

Can I restore a VM when a backup is in progress?

VJ-8370 651

Hi,

Can I restore a VM when a backup is in progress? (Take Snapshot step is already completed, Transfer data to vault step is in progress which is expected to take 8 hours approximately).

The VM has many disks which are more than 10 TB.

Can I please get any official documentation to understand what happens behind the scenes when a backup is initiated (automated & manual) for an Azure VM to an RSV?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

VJ

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Answer 1

TP 131.6K Volunteer Moderator

Hi VJ,

Yes, you can restore VM while waiting for backup job to transfer data to vault. I've done it before.

The restore job will use local Instant Restore snapshot. Please see article below for more details:

Get improved backup and restore performance with Azure Backup Instant Restore capability

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/backup/backup-instant-restore-capability

Please click Accept Answer and upvote if the above was helpful.

Thanks.

-TP

VJ-8370 651 Reputation points

2025-08-08T12:49:31.0366667+00:00

Thank you. Can I get the detailed activity as to what happens in the background (where the VM snapshot is created? and whether we can see it) in the entire backup process (Snapshot step and the transfer to vault step). Also, the instant restore link does not have detailed steps to perform instant restore. Kindly advise about corresponding pre-requisites and steps to perform instant restore
TP 131.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2025-08-11T16:48:39.85+00:00

To restore the VM you would navigate to the VM in the portal, on left click Backup + disaster recovery -- Backup, click Restore VM at the top, select restore point, select restore options, click Restore. Since your only restore point is the instant restore snapshot that is what it will use for the restore, but you can tell because it will say Snapshot for the datastore on the restore screen.

I was unable to find additional documentation in regards to how the backup process works at a low level. Based on the wording in that article I'm assuming the snapshots are stored on same storage cluster as the VM's disks.

In terms of pre-requisites, you just need to have a snapshot restore point available and select it when restoring.

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Can I restore a VM when a backup is in progress?

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