DEA-C01 Data Store Management Practice Question
A data engineer notices that an Amazon Redshift cluster is running low on disk space. The cluster has three nodes of type dc2.large. Which action will increase the available storage capacity?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse Redshift's local storage model with EBS-backed storage, leading them to think they can change volume types or mount external storage like S3, when in fact Redshift relies solely on the aggregate of each node's local instance store for persistent data.
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
✓
Increase the number of nodes in the cluster.
Amazon Redshift stores data on the local instance store volumes attached to each node in the cluster. With a dc2.large cluster, each node provides approximately 160 GB of SSD storage. Adding nodes increases the total available storage linearly because each new node contributes its local storage to the cluster. Therefore, increasing the number of nodes is the correct way to expand disk capacity.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Increase the number of nodes in the cluster.
Why this is correct
Adding nodes to the dc2.large cluster increases total storage because each node contributes its own local disk capacity; Redshift distributes data across all nodes. Resizing node type or other settings does not add storage as directly.
- ✗
Mount an Amazon S3 bucket as a file system to store data.
Why it's wrong here
Redshift cannot mount S3 as a local file system; S3 is accessed through COPY, UNLOAD and Spectrum external tables, which query data in place rather than adding cluster disk. Mounting S3 as a file system suits EC2 or on-premises workloads needing shared POSIX storage.
- ✗
Change the volume type to Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) to increase capacity.
Why it's wrong here
Redshift node storage is fixed by node type and count; io1 is an EBS volume type for EC2, not a Redshift cluster setting, so it cannot expand dc2.large capacity. Provisioned IOPS volumes are the right answer when tuning IOPS and throughput for a self-managed EC2 database.
- ✗
Enable automatic compression on the tables.
Why it's wrong here
Automatic compression reduces the bytes each column occupies, reclaiming space already allocated, but it does not add nodes or change node type, so total cluster capacity is unchanged. Compression is the right lever when tuning query performance and scan cost on existing storage.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DEA-C01 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 DEA-C01 exam.