SAA-C03 Design High-Performing Architectures Practice Question
A genomics research company runs a large-scale sequence alignment workload on AWS. The workload requires a shared file system that can be accessed concurrently by thousands of EC2 instances, provides high throughput and low latency, and supports POSIX permissions. The data set is about 500 TB and grows by 10 TB per month. The solutions architect needs to choose a storage solution that meets these performance and scalability requirements. Which solution should the architect use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse general-purpose scalable file storage like Amazon EFS with a high-performance file system like FSx for Lustre, which is specifically designed for HPC and low-latency, high-throughput workloads.
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
✓
Amazon FSx for Lustre with a linked Amazon S3 data repository.
Amazon FSx for Lustre is a fully managed, high-performance file system optimized for compute-intensive workloads such as genomics, machine learning, and HPC. It provides POSIX-compliant access, scales to hundreds of gigabytes per second throughput and millions of IOPS, and can be linked to an S3 bucket for durable storage. It supports thousands of concurrent EC2 instances, making it the best fit for large-scale sequence alignment.
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 FSx for Lustre with a linked Amazon S3 data repository.
Why this is correct
FSx for Lustre is a high-performance file system optimized for compute-intensive workloads like genomics. It provides sub-millisecond latencies, millions of IOPS, and hundreds of gigabytes per second of throughput. It supports POSIX permissions and can be linked to an S3 bucket for durable long-term storage. The file system can scale to hundreds of terabytes and is accessible from thousands of EC2 instances concurrently, making it ideal for this scenario.
- ✗
Amazon FSx for Windows File Server with Multi-AZ deployment.
Why it's wrong here
FSx for Windows File Server is designed for Windows-based workloads and supports SMB protocol, not native POSIX. While it can be accessed from Linux using SMB, it does not provide the high-performance, low-latency POSIX-compliant file system required for genomics. It also may not scale to the required throughput and IOPS for thousands of concurrent EC2 instances performing intensive sequence alignment. FSx for Lustre is purpose-built for this type of HPC workload.
- ✗
Amazon EFS with Provisioned Throughput mode and a mount target in each Availability Zone.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon EFS is a scalable, POSIX-compliant file system, but it is designed for general-purpose workloads and does not provide the same level of high throughput and low latency as FSx for Lustre. Even with Provisioned Throughput, EFS may not deliver the millions of IOPS required for large-scale genomics. Additionally, EFS can be more expensive for high-throughput workloads, and it may not scale to the performance levels needed for thousands of instances performing intensive I/O.
- ✗
Amazon S3 with S3 Transfer Acceleration and an S3 Gateway endpoint.
Why it's wrong here
Amazon S3 is an object store, not a file system. It does not support POSIX permissions or concurrent file system access from thousands of EC2 instances in the same way a shared file system does. While S3 can be used for durable storage, applications would need to be rewritten to use S3 APIs. S3 Transfer Acceleration speeds up uploads over long distances but does not provide the low-latency, high-throughput file system semantics required for sequence alignment.
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 |
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Amazon Web Services exam blueprint
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.