PAS-C01 Migration Practice Question
A company is migrating a SAP HANA database to AWS. Which storage configuration is recommended for SAP HANA to meet performance requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to choose gp2 volumes (Option C) because they are familiar with general-purpose workloads, but they fail to recognize that SAP HANA requires sustained high IOPS and low latency that only io2 Block Express volumes can guarantee, as gp2's burst model cannot maintain performance for production HANA databases.
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 EBS io2 Block Express volumes
Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes are the recommended storage configuration for SAP HANA on AWS because they provide up to 4,000 MB/s throughput per volume and 256,000 IOPS, with 99.999% durability. This meets the high-performance, low-latency requirements of SAP HANA, which demands consistent sub-millisecond latency for its columnar in-memory database operations. io2 Block Express volumes also support multi-attach for SAP HANA scale-out configurations and are the only EBS volume type validated by SAP for production HANA 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.
- ✗
Amazon EC2 instance store volumes
Why it's wrong here
Instance store volumes provide ephemeral block storage directly attached to the EC2 host, but SAP HANA requires persistent, durable storage to survive instance stops or hardware failures without data loss. This option is tempting because instance store offers extremely low latency and high IOPS, making it ideal for temporary caches or scratch data where persistence is irrelevant, such as in high-performance computing workloads.
- ✗
Amazon S3 as a block device
Why it's wrong here
S3 is object storage, not suitable for database files.
- ✗
Amazon EBS gp2 volumes
Why it's wrong here
gp2 volumes may not provide required IOPS for HANA.
- ✓
Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes
Why this is correct
io2 Block Express offers high IOPS and low latency.
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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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.