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CV0-004 Storage latency Practice Question
A cloud administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue where a virtual machine running a database is experiencing high latency. The hypervisor shows the VM has been allocated 4 vCPUs and 16 GB of RAM, but the host server has 32 GB of RAM and 16 cores. Which of the following is most likely the cause of the latency?
⚠ Common exam trap
CompTIA often tests the concept that network-attached storage can cause high latency for I/O-intensive workloads like databases, even when CPU and memory allocations appear sufficient. Candidates may overlook storage performance and default to CPU or memory issues.
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
✓
The VM's storage is on a network share.
The VM has 4 vCPUs on a host with 16 physical cores, so CPU over-provisioning is not the issue. However, the database workload is sensitive to storage latency. If the VM's virtual disks reside on a network share (e.g., NFS, SMB), I/O operations must traverse the network, introducing higher latency compared to local storage. This is a common cause of performance degradation in database VMs, as they require low-latency disk access. The RAM allocation (16 GB out of 32 GB host) is adequate, and paravirtualized drivers typically improve performance.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The VM is over-provisioned on vCPUs relative to physical cores.
Why it's wrong here
This is incorrect because the VM's vCPU-to-core ratio (4:16) is not over-provisioned. Over-provisioning would require more total vCPUs than physical cores across all VMs on the host, but only one VM is mentioned.
- ✓
The VM's storage is on a network share.
Why this is correct
This is correct because network storage introduces higher latency, which is detrimental to database performance. Even with adequate CPU and RAM, I/O waits can cause significant latency.
- ✗
The VM has too little RAM.
Why it's wrong here
This is incorrect because the VM has 16 GB of RAM on a host with 32 GB total, which is a reasonable allocation and not likely to cause latency.
- ✗
The VM is using paravirtualized drivers.
Why it's wrong here
This is incorrect because paravirtualized drivers are optimized for virtualized environments and typically improve performance, not degrade it.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CV0-004 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 CV0-004 exam.