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CV0-004 Practice Question: A company runs a critical application on a single…
A company runs a critical application on a single VM in a public cloud. The VM uses a 500 GB managed disk. The company takes daily snapshots of the disk for backup. The operations team notices that the snapshot creation time has increased from 5 minutes to over an hour over the past month. The VM's disk usage has remained stable at around 200 GB. The VM runs a database that writes logs to a separate data disk (100 GB) which is not snapshotted. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the increasing snapshot time?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently assume snapshot time correlates only with total used disk space, ignoring that write churn (block-level changes) is the primary driver of incremental snapshot duration in cloud environments.
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
✓
High write activity (churn) on the OS disk causing more data to be captured in each snapshot.
The snapshot creation time has increased because of high write activity (churn) on the OS disk. Azure and other cloud platforms use a block-level incremental snapshot mechanism; when a disk has high churn, many blocks change between snapshots, forcing the snapshot process to read and store a large number of changed blocks even if the total used space remains stable. Since the VM runs a database that writes logs to a separate data disk (not snapshotted), the OS disk still experiences frequent writes from the database's log flushing or other system operations, causing the snapshot to capture many changed blocks and thus take longer.
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's used disk space has increased significantly, requiring larger snapshots.
Why it's wrong here
The problem states used space is stable at 200 GB, not increasing.
- ✓
High write activity (churn) on the OS disk causing more data to be captured in each snapshot.
Why this is correct
Snapshots capture blocks changed since last snapshot; high churn increases the volume of changed blocks.
- ✗
The data disk is consuming space on the OS disk due to log file growth.
Why it's wrong here
The data disk is separate and not snapshotted, so it doesn't affect OS disk snapshot time.
- ✗
The backup software is compressing snapshots, causing CPU overhead and longer times.
Why it's wrong here
Cloud snapshots are typically not compressed by backup software at the VM level.
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JA
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.