easyMultiple Choice
CAS-004 Evaluating its disaster recovery plan Practice Question
A company is evaluating its disaster recovery plan. Which metric indicates the maximum acceptable downtime?
⚠ Common exam trap
CAS-005 often tests the RTO/RPO distinction, and candidates confuse RPO (data loss tolerance) with RTO (downtime tolerance) — the trap is reading 'downtime' and picking RPO because both are recovery metrics.
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
✓
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defines the maximum acceptable downtime after a disruption — the target time within which systems must be restored to avoid unacceptable business impact. It is the metric that directly answers 'how long can we be down?' and drives DR architecture decisions like warm standby versus hot standby. RTO is paired with RPO, which defines acceptable data loss.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
Why it's wrong here
MTTR measures the average time taken to restore a failed component, not the tolerable outage window agreed with the business. It is tempting because repair duration feeds recovery planning, yet the maximum acceptable downtime is the recovery time objective (RTO).
- ✗
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
Why it's wrong here
RPO defines the maximum tolerable data loss measured in time, not downtime. It is tempting because both metrics appear in disaster recovery planning, but RPO answers how much data you can afford to lose; the maximum acceptable downtime is the Recovery Time Objective (RTO).
- ✓
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Why this is correct
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defines the maximum tolerable duration of service interruption after a disruption, directly answering the downtime constraint in the stem. Unlike Recovery Point Objective, which measures acceptable data loss in time, RTO targets restoration speed, making it the metric that specifies how long an outage may last before unacceptable impact occurs.
- ✗
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
Why it's wrong here
MTBF measures average elapsed time between failures, describing reliability rather than any permitted outage duration. It is tempting because it is a downtime-adjacent availability metric, but the maximum acceptable downtime is the recovery time objective (RTO).
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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 CompTIA exam blueprint
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