PAS-C01 Technology Practice Question
A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to choose the storage for the HANA data volume. Which EBS volume type provides the highest consistent IOPS for this workload?
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
✓
EBS io2 Block Express
EBS io2 Block Express is designed for mission-critical applications like SAP HANA, offering the highest consistent IOPS of any EBS volume type, with up to 256,000 IOPS. Option B (gp3) provides baseline performance but lower maximum IOPS than io2 Block Express. Option C (io1) is an older provisioned IOPS type with lower maximum IOPS (up to 64,000) compared to io2 Block Express. Option D (st1) is throughput-optimized and not suitable for high IOPS workloads.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
EBS io2 Block Express
Why this is correct
io2 Block Express offers up to 256,000 IOPS.
- ✗
EBS gp3
Why it's wrong here
gp3 provides up to 16,000 IOPS.
- ✗
EBS io1
Why it's wrong here
io1 provides up to 64,000 IOPS.
- ✗
EBS st1
Why it's wrong here
st1 is for throughput-intensive workloads.
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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Same concept, more angles
1 more way this is tested on PAS-C01
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. A company is deploying SAP S/4HANA on AWS and needs to choose a storage solution for the HANA data volume that provides high IOPS and low latency. Which TWO storage options are suitable? (Choose TWO.)
medium- A.Amazon EBS gp2 volumes
- ✓ B.Amazon EC2 instance store (NVMe SSD)
- ✓ C.Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes
- D.Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)
- E.Amazon S3
Why B: Amazon EC2 instance store (NVMe SSD) provides very high IOPS and ultra-low latency because it is physically attached to the host server, making it ideal for SAP HANA data volumes that require consistent, sub-millisecond performance. Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes deliver up to 256,000 IOPS per volume with single-digit millisecond latency and 99.999% durability, meeting SAP HANA's demanding storage performance requirements.
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PAS-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 PAS-C01 exam.