XK0-006 Troubleshooting Practice Question
A system administrator is investigating high disk I/O on a server. Which command can provide disk utilization statistics, including average wait time (await) and percentage of CPU time during which I/O requests were issued (%util)?
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
✓
iostat -x 1
The `iostat` command reports disk I/O statistics including await and %util.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
free -h
Why it's wrong here
free -h reports memory and swap consumption only, exposing no await or %util figures. It is tempting because swap usage can hint at disk pressure, and it is the right tool for memory troubleshooting, but iostat is required for per-device disk utilisation and wait statistics.
- ✗
sar -b 1 5
Why it's wrong here
sar -b reports I/O transfer rates and throughput, not per-device await or %util; those metrics come from iostat -x. It is tempting because sar does collect historical I/O statistics, making it the right tool for trend analysis over time rather than instantaneous device saturation.
- ✓
iostat -x 1
Why this is correct
`iostat -x 1` reports extended disk statistics per device, including await (average wait time in milliseconds) and %util (percentage of time the device had I/O in flight), refreshed every second. This directly satisfies the stem's requirement for both metrics, unlike `vmstat` or `top`, which omit per-device await and %util.
- ✗
vmstat 1 5
Why it's wrong here
vmstat shows CPU, memory, swap and block I/O counts, but never reports per-device await or %util; those come from iostat -x. It tempts because vmstat samples continuously and does surface I/O columns, so it suits broad system-load monitoring rather than pinpointing a slow disk.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This XK0-006 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 XK0-006 exam.