SAA-C03 Practice Question: EBS volumes incur charges even when unattached.
A internal reporting portal has old unattached EBS volumes and many stale snapshots. Which two actions reduce storage cost without affecting running instances? The design must avoid adding custom operational scripts.
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates might think stopping instances or disabling CloudTrail saves costs, but these actions either disrupt operations or target unrelated services, while the real savings come from cleaning up orphaned storage resources.
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
✓
Delete unattached EBS volumes after verifying they are no longer needed
Deleting unattached EBS volumes directly reduces storage costs without impacting running instances, as these volumes are not in use. Option D is correct because snapshot lifecycle policies automate the deletion of obsolete snapshots, eliminating manual cleanup and reducing storage costs without custom scripts.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Disable CloudTrail logging
Why it's wrong here
Disabling audit logging is not a storage cost optimization for EBS and weakens governance.
- ✗
Stop all EC2 instances in the account
Why it's wrong here
Stopping instances does not remove EBS volume or snapshot charges.
- ✓
Delete unattached EBS volumes after verifying they are no longer needed
Why this is correct
Unattached volumes continue to incur charges until deleted.
- ✓
Apply snapshot lifecycle policies to expire obsolete snapshots
Why this is correct
Lifecycle policies can automate cleanup of old snapshots.
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JA
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.