SAA-C03 Design High-Performing Architectures Practice Question
A containerized service fleet running on EC2 instances needs to share user-uploaded files and access them with low latency. The workload is bursty: sometimes dozens of instances concurrently read the same directory for short periods, and then traffic drops. Which Amazon EFS configuration best matches these performance needs?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume Max I/O is always better for high concurrency, but they overlook that General Purpose mode provides lower latency and stronger consistency for directory-heavy bursty reads, which is the actual requirement.
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
✓
Use Amazon EFS General Purpose performance mode and Throughput mode set to Bursting.
The workload is bursty with concurrent reads of the same directory, which favors the General Purpose performance mode for its strong consistency and lower latency per operation. The Bursting Throughput mode is ideal for bursty traffic as it allows the file system to accumulate burst credits during idle periods and consume them during high-demand spikes, matching the described pattern without incurring additional costs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use Amazon EFS General Purpose performance mode and Throughput mode set to Bursting.
Why this is correct
EFS General Purpose performance mode is designed for latency-sensitive use cases with a broad range of I/O sizes, including typical file-sharing and web-content workloads. Throughput mode Bursting provides baseline throughput and allows throughput to scale up during demand spikes, which matches the pattern of short read bursts from many instances. When traffic drops, the system returns to baseline without requiring you to provision peak throughput for all time.
- ✗
Use Amazon EFS Max I/O performance mode with Throughput mode set to Provisioned.
Why it's wrong here
Max I/O is intended for workloads that sustain very high IOPS (for example, many small, random reads/writes and heavy metadata operations). Provisioned throughput requires you to select a throughput level appropriate for sustained demand; for bursty traffic, this can lead to either throttling during spikes (if set too low) or unnecessary cost when traffic is low.
- ✗
Use Amazon EFS General Purpose performance mode with Throughput mode set to Provisioned.
Why it's wrong here
General Purpose mode fits low-latency workloads, but Provisioned throughput ties performance to a fixed throughput setting. With bursty spikes and lower baseline demand, you must provision enough throughput for the spikes or risk throttling during the periods of concurrent reads, and you may overpay during off-peak periods.
- ✗
Use Amazon EFS Max I/O performance mode with Throughput mode set to Bursting.
Why it's wrong here
While Bursting can handle throughput spikes, Max I/O can be unnecessarily optimized/costly for workloads that are not primarily sustained high IOPS or metadata-heavy. For bursty directory reads with varying read patterns, General Purpose plus Bursting is the best fit to balance latency and elasticity without over-optimizing for sustained IOPS.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAA-C03 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 SAA-C03 exam.