VCP-DCV vSphere Performance and Scaling Practice Question
A VM with a large memory footprint is experiencing high swap rates. The host has free memory but the swap rate is still high. What is the most likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
VCP-DCV often tests the confusion between memory reservation and memory limit; candidates assume 'host has free memory' means no swapping, forgetting that a VM-level limit forces reclamation regardless of host capacity.
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 memory limit is set too low.
A VM memory limit in vSphere caps the amount of host physical memory the VM can consume. When the limit is lower than the guest's working set, the VM balloons and then swaps to its .vswp file even though the host has free memory, because the limit — not host pressure — is driving reclamation. Raising or removing the limit resolves the swap.
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 virtual machine swap file is on a slow datastore.
Why it's wrong here
High swap with free host memory points to the VM's own guest-level paging or a configured memory limit, not datastore latency; swap file placement affects performance only when host-level swapping already occurs. A slow datastore is genuinely the culprit when storage I/O latency stalls VM operations.
- ✓
The VM's memory limit is set too low.
Why this is correct
A configured memory limit caps the VM's usable guest RAM below what the workload needs, so ESXi swaps pages out even though the host has free physical memory. Raising or removing the limit lets the VM retain its working set in RAM.
- ✗
The host is using software iSCSI causing high latency.
Why it's wrong here
Software iSCSI latency degrades storage throughput, not memory swap rates; the host still has free RAM, so storage path contention is unrelated. Software iSCSI is the correct focus when diagnosing slow datastore response or storage timeouts.
- ✗
The VM's memory reservation is set too high.
Why it's wrong here
A reservation guarantees physical memory, so raising it reduces host swapping rather than causing it; the symptom stems from guest-level paging or a configured memory limit. Reservations are the right tool when a VM must never have its memory reclaimed by the host.
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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 VMware exam blueprint
This VCP-DCV practice question is part of Courseiva's free VMware 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 VCP-DCV exam.