Google PCA Practice Question: Analyze and optimize technical and business processes
A developer is migrating a stateful application to GKE. The application requires persistent storage with high IOPS for a database. Which storage option is most suitable?
⚠ Common exam trap
Google Cloud often tests the misconception that Local SSD is suitable for stateful workloads because of its high IOPS, but the trap is that candidates forget Local SSD is ephemeral and does not survive pod rescheduling or node failures.
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
✓
Persistent Disk SSD
Persistent Disk SSD (pd-ssd) is the most suitable option for a stateful database on GKE requiring high IOPS because it provides block storage with consistent, high-performance IOPS and can be dynamically provisioned via PersistentVolumeClaims. Unlike Local SSD, pd-ssd persists data independently of the node lifecycle, ensuring data durability during pod rescheduling or node failures.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Local SSD
Why it's wrong here
Local SSD is node-attached ephemeral storage; data is lost when the pod or node terminates, so it cannot persist a database. It is tempting because it delivers the highest IOPS available to GKE, which is correct for scratch space, caches or temporary processing rather than durable stateful storage.
- ✓
Persistent Disk SSD
Why this is correct
Persistent Disk SSD provides block storage backed by solid-state media, delivering the high IOPS a database demands. It supports ReadWriteOnce access for a single stateful pod, matching the persistent, high-performance storage requirement of the migrated application.
- ✗
Cloud Storage Fuse
Why it's wrong here
Cloud Storage Fuse presents a GCS bucket as a filesystem, offering object-store latency unsuitable for database IOPS demands. It is tempting because it gives pods shared file access without provisioning disks, which suits read-heavy static content or model training data rather than transactional database workloads.
- ✗
Persistent Disk Standard
Why it's wrong here
Standard Persistent Disk uses magnetic-backed HDDs, delivering far lower IOPS than the SSD-backed pd-ssd tier a database demands. It is tempting because it is the cheapest and default PD type, and would suit low-throughput workloads such as file shares or development test volumes, not high-IOPS database storage.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Cloud SQL and Managed Data Stores
Key term
Pod
A pod is the smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes, containing one or more containers that share storage, network, and a specification for how to run.
Key term
GKE
GKE is Google's managed Kubernetes service that automates deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications in the cloud.
About these practice questions
This PCA question is part of Courseiva's 807-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PCA practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud 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 PCA exam.