CLF-C02 Cloud Technology and Services Practice Question
A company wants to allow their on-premises employees to access S3 objects using Windows file system operations (drive mapping) without migrating their workflows. Which AWS service provides this capability?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse FSx for Windows File Server (a native Windows file system) with Storage Gateway File Gateway (which bridges S3 to SMB), or assume Direct Connect alone can expose S3 as a file system, but neither provides the SMB-to-S3 translation required for drive mapping.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
AWS Storage Gateway File Gateway (SMB)
AWS Storage Gateway File Gateway with SMB (Server Message Block) support allows on-premises employees to mount S3 buckets as Windows file shares using standard drive mapping. This enables access to S3 objects via Windows file system operations without migrating existing workflows, as the gateway caches frequently accessed data locally while storing the primary data in S3.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon S3 with AWS Direct Connect
Why it's wrong here
Direct Connect provides a dedicated private network link from on-premises to AWS, but it only changes the network path — it does not convert S3's REST API into Windows file-sharing semantics. S3 is an object store accessed via HTTP(S) requests (like PUT/GET), and without a protocol translator such as Storage Gateway, Windows clients cannot map an S3 bucket as a network drive. Thus, even with Direct Connect, employees would need custom code or separate gateway software, making this option incomplete for the stated requirement.
- ✓
AWS Storage Gateway File Gateway (SMB)
Why this is correct
AWS Storage Gateway File Gateway (with the SMB protocol option) is the correct service because it deploys a virtual appliance that presents an S3 bucket as an SMB file share to on-premises Windows clients. This appliance handles the protocol translation, so users map a standard Windows drive letter (e.g., Z:) and interact with files normally, while the gateway stores the underlying data as objects in S3 and locally caches hot data for low latency. It is the only listed option that natively gives Windows clients a network-mounted file share backed by S3 without requiring them to use S3 API operations.
- ✗
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server
Why it's wrong here
FSx for Windows is a fully managed Windows file server in AWS — employees would need network connectivity to the FSx server, and files would live in FSx (backed by Windows Server), not directly in S3.
- ✗
Amazon EFS with SMB protocol
Why it's wrong here
Amazon EFS is a POSIX-compliant file system that supports NFSv4.0 and NFSv4.1 protocols only — it does not natively support SMB (the protocol used by Windows for file shares). Although Windows Server has an optional NFS client, that client is not a transparent way to map a standard Windows network drive and lacks Windows-specific SMB features like named pipes or opportunistic locks. Because EFS is designed for Linux/Unix workloads and its mount points are NFS-based, it fails this Windows-SMB file share requirement outright.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CLF-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CLF-C02 exam.