Support matrix for VM restore points

This article summarizes the support matrix and limitations of using VM restore points.

VM restore points support matrix

Scenarios	Supported by VM restore points
VMs using managed disks	Yes
VMs using unmanaged disks	No
VM sizes	Crash consistency is supported for VM SKUs that support Premium storage.
VMs using Ultra Disks	Yes for application consistency. Multi-disk crash consistency is supported in public preview for VMs with SCSI disk controllers, subject to the preview requirements.
VMs using Premium SSD v2 disks	Yes for application consistency. Multi-disk crash consistency is supported in public preview for VMs with SCSI disk controllers, subject to the preview requirements.
VMs using Ephemeral OS Disks	No. Exclude these disks and create a VM restore point.
VMs using shared disks	No. Exclude these disks and create a VM restore point.
VMs with extensions	Yes
VMs with trusted launch OS disk	Yes
Data disks restored from Trusted launch enabled OS Disk	No
Confidential VMs	Supported for application consistency only with size v6-series in UAE North and Korea Central (preview) v5-series isn't supported. Not supported for crash consistency.
Generation 2 VMs (UEFI boot)	Yes
VMs with NVMe disks (Storage optimized - Lsv2-series)	Yes for Application consistent. Not supported for crash consistency.
VM Architecture - x64	Application and crash consistent supported.
VM Architecture - ARM64	Application supported for Linux images only.
VMs in Proximity placement groups	Yes
VMs in an availability set	Yes. You can create VM restore points for individual VMs within an availability set. You need to create restore points for all the VMs within an availability set to protect an entire availability set instance.
VMs inside VMSS with uniform orchestration	No
VMs inside VMSS with flexible orchestration	Yes. You can create VM restore points for individual VMs within the virtual machine scale set flex. However, you need to create restore points for all the VMs within the virtual machine scale set flex to protect an entire virtual machine scale set flex instance.
Spot VMs (Low priority VMs)	Yes
VMs with dedicated hosts	Yes
VMs with Host caching enabled	Yes
VMs created from marketplace images	Yes
VMs created from custom images	Yes
VM with HUB (Hybrid Use Benefit) license	Yes
VMs migrated from on-prem using Azure Migrate	Yes
VMs with RBAC policies	Yes
Temporary disk in VMs	Yes. You can create VM restore point for VMs with temporary disks. However, the restore points created don't contain the data from the temporary disks.
VMs with Standard HDDs	Yes for application consistency and multi-disk crash consistency.
VMs with Standard SSDs	Yes for application consistency and multi-disk crash consistency.
VMs with Premium SSDs	Yes for application consistency and multi-disk crash consistency.
VMs with ZRS disks	Yes
VMs with server-side encryption using service-managed keys	Yes. The encryption of source disk won't be enabled on the restore point.
VMs with server-side encryption using customer-managed keys	Yes. The encryption of source disk won't be enabled on the restore point.
VMs with double encryption at rest	Yes. The encryption of source disk won't be enabled on the restore point.
VMs with Host based encryption enabled with PMK/CMK/Double encryption	Yes. The encryption of source disk won't be enabled on the restore point.
VMs with ADE (Azure Disk Encryption)	Yes. The encryption of source disk won't be enabled on the restore point.
VMs using Accelerated Networking	Yes
VMs running on Azure Boost hardware	Yes for application consistency. Not supported for multi-disk crash consistency, regardless of disk type, including VMs with SCSI disk controllers. See Azure Boost placement.
Minimum Frequency at which App consistent restore point can be taken	3 hours
Minimum Frequency at which crash consistent restore points can be taken	1 hour
API version for Application consistent restore point	2021-03-01 or later
API version for Crash consistent restore point	2021-07-01 or later
Instant Access for application-consistent restore points	Yes, only for VMs with Premium SSD v2 or Ultra Disks as data disks. API version 2025-04-01 or later.
Instant Access for multi-disk crash-consistent restore points (public preview)	Yes, only for VMs with Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks as data disks. API version 2025-04-01 or later.

Note

Restore Points (App consistent or crash consistent) can be created by customer at the minimum supported frequency as mentioned above. Taking restore points at a frequency lower than supported would result in failure.

Instant Access

Instant Access applies only to VMs with Premium SSD v2 or Ultra Disks as data disks. It supports both application-consistent and multi-disk crash-consistent restore points. Enable Instant Access on the restore point collection and set consistencyMode to CrashConsistent when you create a multi-disk crash-consistent restore point. Instant Access requires API version 2025-04-01 or later. For an example, see Create VM restore points using APIs.

Multi-disk crash consistency for Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks (public preview)

The public preview extends existing multi-disk crash-consistent restore point support to VMs with Premium SSD v2 or Ultra data disks. For these data disk types, multi-disk crash consistency is supported in public preview only on VMs with SCSI disk controllers. The general restrictions on NVMe disk controllers and Azure Boost hardware apply regardless of disk type, not just to this preview. Existing support for Standard HDD, Standard SSD, and Premium SSD disks is unchanged.

The preview is available in all public regions except:

South Central US.
West US 3.
East US 2.

Azure Boost placement

A VM with a SCSI disk controller and Premium SSD v2 or Ultra data disks can land on newer-generation Azure Boost hardware in US regions. Creating a crash-consistent restore point on that hardware fails with UserErrorCrashConsistentSnapshotNotSupportedForAzureBoostVms.

Apply the LegacyVMNVA tag to the VM to prevent placement on Azure Boost hardware. For tag instructions, see MANA support for Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs). Applying the tag doesn't automatically move an existing VM off Azure Boost hardware.

For an existing VM:

Stop the VM.
Apply the LegacyVMNVA tag to the VM.
Redeploy the VM so that placement honors the tag and avoids Azure Boost hardware.
Retry creating the crash-consistent restore point.

Important

Plan for downtime when you stop and redeploy the VM. Applying the tag alone doesn't remediate an existing VM's placement.

Operating system support for application consistency

Windows

The following Windows operating systems are supported when creating restore points for Azure VMs running on Windows.

Windows 10 Client (64 bit only)
Windows Server 2022 (Datacenter/Datacenter Core/Standard)
Windows Server 2019 (Datacenter/Datacenter Core/Standard)
Windows Server 2016 (Datacenter/Datacenter Core/Standard)
Windows Server 2012 R2 (Datacenter/Standard)
Windows Server 2012 (Datacenter/Standard)
OS that have reached extended security update won't be supported. Check your product's lifecycle here

Restore points don't support 32-bit operating systems.

Linux

For Azure VM Linux VMs, restore points support the list of Linux distributions endorsed by Azure. Note the following:

Restore points don't support Core OS Linux.
Restore points don't support 32-bit operating systems.
Other bring-your-own Linux distributions might work as long as the Azure VM agent for Linux is available on the VM, and as long as Python is supported.
Restore points don't support a proxy-configured Linux VM if it doesn't have Python version 2.7 or higher installed.
Restore points don't back up NFS files that are mounted from storage, or from any other NFS server, to Linux or Windows machines. It only backs up disks that are locally attached to the VM.

Operating system support for crash consistency

All Operating systems are supported.

Other limitations

Restore points are supported only for managed disks.
Ephemeral OS disks, and Shared disks aren't supported via both consistency modes.
Restore points APIs require an API of version 2021-03-01 or later for application consistency.
Restore points APIs require an API of version 2021-03-01 or later for crash consistency.
A maximum of 10,000 restore point collections can be retained at per subscription per region level.
A maximum of 500 VM restore points can be retained at any time for a VM, irrespective of the number of restore point collections.
Concurrent creation of restore points for a VM isn't supported.
Movement of virtual machines between resource groups or subscriptions is supported when VM has restore points. New restore point creation will fail on the previous VM as the VM no longer exists after the movement. You need to clean up the restore point collection and restore points of the old VM if no longer needed.

Confidential Virtual Machines (Preview)

Scenarios	Supported by VM restore points
Consistency type	Application consistent restore points
Regions supported	UAE North and Korea Central
VM Sizes	v6-series is supported. v5-series isn't supported.
Key rotation	Supported. When key rotation occurs on a confidential virtual machine, the keys for the VM disks, related restore points, and snapshots update automatically. Known issue: The key rotation in this preview release might have performance issues or fail in the following scenarios: - More than 40 disks are attached to one DES when (only) restore points are associated with these disks. If you also directly create disk snapshots outside of Azure backup for these disks connected to the same DES, this lowers the safe threshold of 40 disks to DES mapping. Recommendation: Keep the number of disks connected to each DES to a minimum until the issue is resolved.
Prerequisites	Before you configure backup for CVM, ensure that the following prerequisites are met: Register for the preview feature in your Azure subscription - Name: `RestorePointSupportForConfidentialVMV2` Provider: `Microsoft.Compute`. The registration is autoapproved. You can follow the steps here to do this on the portal. You can also run the following PowerShell cmdlet. `azurepowershell-interactive Register-AzProviderFeature -FeatureName "RestorePointSupportForConfidentialVMV2" -ProviderNamespace "Microsoft.Compute"` Identify or create a Confidential VM (CVM) in a supported region. See the supported regions.