Move an Azure Storage account to another region

Article
09/04/2023

To move a storage account, create a copy of your storage account in another region. Then, move your data to that account by using AzCopy, or another tool of your choice.

In this article, you'll learn how to:

Export a template.
Modify the template by adding the target region and storage account name.
Deploy the template to create the new storage account.
Configure the new storage account.
Move data to the new storage account.
Delete the resources in the source region.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the services and features that your account uses are supported in the target region.
For preview features, ensure that your subscription is allowlisted for the target region.

Prepare

To get started, export, and then modify a Resource Manager template.

Export a template

This template contains settings that describe your storage account.

Portal
PowerShell

To export a template by using Azure portal:

Sign in to the Azure portal.
Select All resources and then select your storage account.
Select > Settings > Export template.
Choose Download in the Export template blade.
Locate the .zip file that you downloaded from the portal, and unzip that file to a folder of your choice.

This zip file contains the .json files that comprise the template and scripts to deploy the template.

To export a template by using PowerShell:

Sign in to your Azure subscription with the Connect-AzAccount command and follow the on-screen directions:
```
Connect-AzAccount -Environment AzureChinaCloud
```
If your identity is associated with more than one subscription, then set your active subscription to subscription of the storage account that you want to move.
```
$context = Get-AzSubscription -SubscriptionId <subscription-id>
Set-AzContext $context
```

Export the template of your source storage account. These commands save a json template to your current directory.

$resource = Get-AzResource `
  -ResourceGroupName <resource-group-name> `
  -ResourceName <storage-account-name> `
  -ResourceType Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts
Export-AzResourceGroup `
  -ResourceGroupName <resource-group-name> `
  -Resource $resource.ResourceId

Modify the template

Modify the template by changing the storage account name and region.

Portal
PowerShell

To deploy the template by using Azure portal:

In the Azure portal, select Create a resource.
In Search the Marketplace, type template deployment, and then press ENTER.
Select Template deployment.
Select Create.
Select Build your own template in the editor.
Select Load file, and then follow the instructions to load the template.json file that you downloaded in the last section.

In the template.json file, name the target storage account by setting the default value of the storage account name. This example sets the default value of the storage account name to mytargetaccount.

"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"parameters": {
    "storageAccounts_mysourceaccount_name": {
        "defaultValue": "mytargetaccount",
        "type": "String"
    }
},

Edit the location property in the template.json file to the target region. This example sets the target region to chinanorth2.

"resources": [{
     "type": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts",
     "apiVersion": "2019-04-01",
     "name": "[parameters('storageAccounts_mysourceaccount_name')]",
     "location": "chinanorth2"
     }]

The code for a region is the region name with no spaces, China North 2 = chinanorth2.

To deploy the template by using PowerShell:

"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"parameters": {
    "storageAccounts_mysourceaccount_name": {
        "defaultValue": "mytargetaccount",
        "type": "String"
    }
},

Edit the location property in the template.json file to the target region. This example sets the target region to chinanorth2.

"resources": [{
     "type": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts",
     "apiVersion": "2019-04-01",
     "name": "[parameters('storageAccounts_mysourceaccount_name')]",
     "location": "chinanorth2"
     }]

You can obtain region codes by running the Get-AzLocation command.

Get-AzLocation | format-table

Move

Deploy the template to create a new storage account in the target region.

Portal
PowerShell

Save the template.json file.
Enter or select the property values:
- Subscription: Select an Azure subscription.
- Resource group: Select Create new and give the resource group a name.
- Location: Select an Azure location.
Click the I agree to the terms and conditions stated above checkbox, and then click the Select Purchase button.

Obtain the subscription ID where you want to deploy the target public IP with Get-AzSubscription:
```
Get-AzSubscription
```

Use these commands to deploy your template:

$resourceGroupName = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter the Resource Group name"
$location = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter the location (i.e. chinanorth2)"

New-AzResourceGroup -Name $resourceGroupName -Location "$location"
New-AzResourceGroupDeployment -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -TemplateUri "<name of your local template file>"

Tip

If you receive an error which states that the XML specified is not syntactically valid, compare the JSON in your template with the schemas described in the Azure Resource Manager documentation.

Configure the new storage account

Some features won't export to a template, so you'll have to add them to the new storage account.

The following table lists these features along with guidance for adding them to your new storage account.

Feature	Guidance
Lifecycle management policies	Manage the Azure Blob storage lifecycle
Static websites	Host a static website in Azure Storage
Event subscriptions	Reacting to Blob storage events
Alerts	Create, view, and manage activity log alerts by using Azure Monitor

Note

If you set up a CDN for the source storage account, just change the origin of your existing CDN to the primary blob service endpoint (or the primary static website endpoint) of your new account.

Move data to the new storage account

AzCopy is the preferred tool to move your data over. It's optimized for performance. One way that it's faster, is that data is copied directly between storage servers, so AzCopy doesn't use the network bandwidth of your computer. Use AzCopy at the command line or as part of a custom script. See Get started with AzCopy.

You can also use Azure Data Factory to move your data over. It provides an intuitive user interface. To use Azure Data Factory, see any of these links:.

Discard or clean up

After the deployment, if you want to start over, you can delete the target storage account, and repeat the steps described in the Prepare and Move sections of this article.

To commit the changes and complete the move of a storage account, delete the source storage account.

Portal
PowerShell

To remove a storage account by using the Azure portal:

In the Azure portal, expand the menu on the left side to open the menu of services, and choose Storage accounts to display the list of your storage accounts.
Locate the target storage account to delete, and right-click the More button (...) on the right side of the listing.
Select Delete, and confirm.

To remove the resource group and its associated resources, including the new storage account, use the Remove-AzStorageAccount command:

Remove-AzStorageAccount -ResourceGroupName  $resourceGroup -AccountName $storageAccount

Next steps

In this tutorial, you moved an Azure storage account from one region to another and cleaned up the source resources. To learn more about moving resources between regions and disaster recovery in Azure, refer to: