ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would first like to thank my wife, Aimee, for encouraging me and giving me the time and freedom to write this book. Her tireless efforts and sacrifices were an outpouring of her amazing love. I thank my parents for the example they set of working hard to accomplish great things, for modeling excellence and integrity, and for giving me the freedom to fail enough to succeed.
Next, I am thankful to my associates at JurInnov for putting up with me while I pursued this project and for helping me with so many things. This book would also not have been possible without the proofing and input of Aisha Ajayi, Gail Larrow, and Subramanian Kannan.
It has been a real pleasure to work with the professional editors at McGraw-Hill. Stephanie Evans, Mary Demery, and Meghan Manfre, thank you for your patience, guidance, and honest feedback. I wish all first-time book authors could work with such a great team. Glen Clarke deserves special mention for his remarkable contributions as technical editor. His comments, questions, and clarifying notes brought polish and refinement to this work.
Thank you all so much. May this book be a testimony to your efforts, assistance, and guidance.
Practice Exam
This practice exam has been written to emulate the types of questions you can expect to see on the CompTIA Storage+ exam. Try to simulate a real testing environment and find a quiet spot where you will not be interrupted. Give yourself 90 minutes to answer all 100 questions.
Once you have answered as many questions as you can in 90 minutes (or are satisfied with your answers if you finish before your 90 minutes are up), go to the Quick Answer Key section to score your exam. Review the in-depth answer explanations and references for any answers that were incorrect and then go to the Analyzing Your Results section to review your score.
Questions
. After configuring storage on a storage array for a host, you find that a technician has moved fiber cables on the fiber switch, causing the assigned LUNs to disappear from the host. What should you do to prevent this from occurring in the future?
A. Utilize WWN zoning
B. Secure the SFPs to the switch with zip ties
C. Utilize port zoning
D. Restrict access to the SAN zoning to storage administrators only
. A host connected to an iSCSI SAN is experiencing high CPU utilization. Which option would resolve the issue with the least effort and cost?
A. Replace the CPU with a faster one
B. Replace the NIC with a NIC with TOE
C. Upgrade copper cables to fiber
D. Upgrade Cat5e cables to Cat6a
. Which of the following would be considered an initiator? (Choose two.)
A. HBA
B. iSCSI NIC
C. Switch port
D. Storage controller
. Snapshots are taken every 15 minutes of an e-mail server and then sent to a nearline storage array. The e-mail backups on the nearline storage array are archived to tape at 10 P.M. each day. Restore tests have confirmed that it takes 30 to 45 minutes to restore an e-mail backup from tape and 2 minutes to restore from nearline storage. What is the RPO?
A. 2 minutes
B. 15 minutes
C. 30 minutes
D. 45 minutes
. You have been tasked with backing up a storage array to tape. The backup window is only a few hours, and all the data must be completely written to tape during the backup window. Which technology should you use to accomplish the objective?
A. Disk to disk
B. Tape autoloader
C. Disk to disk to tape
D. Tape library
. Users complain about slow access to files on a database server. The database server has its database files stored on an iSCSI SAN. You check the logs on the storage array and switches and see no errors. You then issue a packet capture on the network and find a significant amount of FTP traffic during the times when users have complained. What should you do to improve performance without impacting the speed of FTP transfers?
A. Give iSCSI traffic a higher priority
B. Give FTP traffic a lower priority
C. Segment the iSCSI traffic on its own VLAN
D. Replace NICs with NICs that support TOE
. At 2 A.M., your storage vendor calls you to tell you that she is on the way to your data center to replace a failed disk. How did the storage vendor know about the failed disk?
A. Call Home
B. Event logs
C. SSH administrator CLI
D. SNMP traps
. You are evaluating the price of a new storage array for your company. The company requires the fastest speed but not high capacity. Which disk technology should you look for in the storage array?
A. SCSI
B. SAS
C. SSD
D. SATA
. Business requirements state that two switches located in different data centers must have the same domain ID. They are part of the same SAN. Which technology will allow you to use the same domain ID on both FC switches?
A. WSAN
B. VSAN
C. Domain ID mirroring
D. Alternate domain IDs
. A multipathed server connected to a SAN loses access to storage resources after a switch fails. What should you do to correct this?
A. Cable both HBAs to different switches
B. Install updates to the hosts multipathing software
C. Configure the ports on the switch to be in the same LAG group
D. Configure the failover option on the zone
. Which component is not configured for high availability in the solution depicted in the illustration?
A. Storage array
B. Switches
C. Host
D. ISL
. Your company would like to move department shares to a central device that will handle access through NFS and CIFS for Windows and Linux machines. Which solution will satisfy the requirements?
A. iSCSI storage array
B. Software as a Service (SaaS)
C. NAS
D. DAS
. A directory on a file share is running out of space, so the IT director orders several new hard drives. Which of the following options would work to increase the space for the directory when the drives arrive? (Choose all that apply.)
A. Create a RAID set with the drives and a logical volume. Add the volume to the storage pool that the file share resides on and verify that the share is set to autoexpand.
B. Create a RAID set with the drives. Select the volume that is running out of space, choose Extend, and select the unpartitioned space on the new RAID set.
C. Create a RAID set with the drives and a logical volume. Mount the volume in a temporary location and move the files in the directory that is running out of space to the new volume; then unmount and mount the volume in the folder location of the directory that was running out of space.
D. Extend the existing RAID set to include the additional drives.
E. Create a RAID set with the drives and a logical volume. Move the data from the directory that is running out of space to the new logical volume and then share it. Change the name of the old share. Use DFS to create a root share with the name of the old share. Create DFS links to the old and new logical volumes so that the former folder structure is maintained.
