1Y0-312 Advanced Provisioning and Image Management Practice Question
An administrator is using Machine Creation Services (MCS) and wants to minimize the storage impact on the hypervisor. Which action should the administrator take?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume that all MCS storage must reside on shared storage for high availability, overlooking the specific performance benefits of placing write caches and identity disks on local hypervisor storage to reduce SAN I/O bottlenecks.
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
✓
Configure the write cache and identity disks to reside on local hypervisor storage.
MCS utilizes linked clones, which share a common base disk. By selecting 'Storage Optimization' or placing identity disks and write caches on local storage rather than shared storage, the administrator significantly reduces the I/O burden on the central SAN. This is critical for scaling large VDI deployments where storage latency often becomes the primary bottleneck for user performance and session responsiveness.
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 full clones for all machine catalogs to ensure maximum performance.
Why it's wrong here
Full clones consume significant storage space because each virtual machine receives a complete copy of the base disk. This contradicts the goal of minimizing storage impact, as it eliminates the benefits of shared storage provided by the MCS linked clone architecture and increases overall capacity requirements significantly.
- ✗
Increase the size of the master image to include all user applications.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing the master image size results in larger differential disks for every virtual machine, as MCS tracks changes at the block level. Larger images lead to higher overall storage utilization and increased replication time when updates are pushed to the target machines, negatively impacting the efficiency of the deployment.
- ✓
Configure the write cache and identity disks to reside on local hypervisor storage.
Why this is correct
Storing write caches and identity disks on local hypervisor storage instead of shared SAN storage reduces I/O pressure on the backend. This improves performance by allowing high-speed local disk access for transient data while still benefiting from the shared base disk provided by the MCS master image.
- ✗
Disable the base disk snapshot feature in the hypervisor.
Why it's wrong here
MCS relies on snapshots to define the base image for cloning. Disabling snapshots would prevent MCS from successfully provisioning new machines, as it requires a stable point-in-time reference to create the linked clones. This action would break the fundamental provisioning workflow, making it impossible to manage the environment.
About these practice questions
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Citrix exam blueprint
This 1Y0-312 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Citrix 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 1Y0-312 exam.