hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
220-1201 Practice Question: A technician is configuring a workstation for a…
A technician is configuring a workstation for a graphic designer who needs to work with large 4K video files. The motherboard supports SATA III and has one M.2 slot. Which storage configuration will provide the best performance 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
✓
One NVMe M.2 SSD for both the OS and media files.
This question tests understanding of storage interface speeds. NVMe M.2 SSDs offer significantly higher sequential read/write speeds (up to 3500 MB/s) compared to SATA III (up to 550 MB/s), making them ideal for large file editing.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
One SATA III SSD for the OS and one SATA III HDD for media files.
Why it's wrong here
This configuration is highly insufficient for a graphic designer working with 4K video. The SATA III HDD for media files will be a severe bottleneck, offering sequential read/write speeds typically below 200 MB/s, which is far too slow for large 4K video streams. Even the SATA III SSD for the OS, limited to 600 MB/s, will struggle with heavy application loading and caching required by demanding graphic design software, leading to constant delays and a poor user experience.
- ✓
One NVMe M.2 SSD for both the OS and media files.
Why this is correct
An NVMe M.2 SSD leverages the PCIe bus, providing significantly higher throughput (e.g., 3,500 MB/s to 7,000+ MB/s) compared to SATA III's 600 MB/s limit. This superior speed is critical for simultaneously handling the operating system, demanding applications, and continuous high-bandwidth read/write operations of large 4K video files. Consolidating both OS and media files on a single, ultra-fast NVMe drive ensures optimal performance and eliminates potential bottlenecks during intensive graphic design workflows.
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Two SATA III SSDs in RAID 0.
Why it's wrong here
While two SATA III SSDs in RAID 0 can theoretically double the sequential read/write performance of a single SATA III SSD (reaching approximately 1200 MB/s), this setup is still fundamentally limited by the SATA interface's 6 Gbps ceiling. This aggregated speed remains considerably slower than a single modern NVMe M.2 SSD, which can easily achieve speeds exceeding 3500 MB/s via the PCIe bus. For 4K video editing, the performance of even a RAID 0 SATA array will be a bottleneck compared to NVMe technology.
- ✗
One SATA III SSD for the OS and one NVMe M.2 SSD for media files.
Why it's wrong here
Using a SATA III SSD for the OS forces the operating system and its pagefile to operate at SATA’s 6 Gbps ceiling, while the NVMe M.2 drive for media files accesses the full PCIe bandwidth—yet the graphic designer’s workflow will constantly swap data between OS and media drives, bottlenecking every read/write cycle on the slower SATA interface. This option is tempting because it mirrors a common cost-saving split: a fast NVMe drive for active project files and a cheaper SATA drive for the OS, which works well for general productivity where OS paging is minimal, but fails here because 4K video editing saturates both drives simultaneously.
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Related to this question
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Network Configuration: IP, DNS, DHCP
Key term
SATA
SATA (Serial ATA) is an interface standard used to connect storage devices like hard drives and solid-state drives to a computer's motherboard.
Key term
NVMe
NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a high-speed storage protocol that allows solid-state drives to communicate directly with a computer's CPU, dramatically improving data transfer speeds compared to older storage interfaces.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 220-1201 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 220-1201 exam.