CDCP Storage Data Center 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which RAID level provides striping with double distributed parity, tolerating up to two simultaneous drive failures?
- RAID 5
- RAID 6 (Correct answer)
- RAID 10
- RAID 50
Correct answer: RAID 6
RAID 6 uses two independent parity blocks distributed across drives, allowing the array to survive two concurrent drive failures.
Question 2: In a SAN environment, what is the primary function of a fabric switch?
- To provide NAS file-level access
- To interconnect hosts and storage devices using Fibre Channel or iSCSI (Correct answer)
- To cache write operations between servers
- To manage RAID group configurations
Correct answer: To interconnect hosts and storage devices using Fibre Channel or iSCSI
A fabric switch in a SAN interconnects hosts and storage arrays using Fibre Channel or iSCSI protocols, enabling block-level storage access.
Question 3: What is the purpose of storage tiering in a data center?
- To replicate data across geographic sites
- To automatically move data between different speed/cost storage classes based on access frequency (Correct answer)
- To stripe data across multiple storage vendors
- To encrypt data at rest across all volumes
Correct answer: To automatically move data between different speed/cost storage classes based on access frequency
Storage tiering automatically migrates data between high-performance and lower-cost tiers based on how frequently that data is accessed.
Question 4: Which protocol is used for block-level storage over standard Ethernet networks as an alternative to Fibre Channel?
- NFS
- SMB
- iSCSI (Correct answer)
- FCoE
Correct answer: iSCSI
iSCSI encapsulates SCSI commands within TCP/IP packets, enabling block-level SAN storage over standard Ethernet infrastructure.
Question 5: What does RPO (Recovery Point Objective) measure in data center storage planning?
- The time needed to restore systems after a failure
- The maximum acceptable data loss measured in time (Correct answer)
- The bandwidth required for replication links
- The number of storage snapshots retained
Correct answer: The maximum acceptable data loss measured in time
RPO defines the maximum tolerable period of data loss — for example, an RPO of 1 hour means you can lose at most 1 hour of data.
Question 6: In object storage, how is data primarily identified and retrieved?
- By file path in a hierarchical directory
- By block address on a disk
- By a unique content-based key or object ID (Correct answer)
- By inode number in a file system
Correct answer: By a unique content-based key or object ID
Object storage uses unique identifiers (keys) rather than file paths or block addresses, making it highly scalable for unstructured data.
Question 7: What is deduplication in the context of data center storage?
- Creating redundant copies of data across multiple arrays
- Eliminating redundant copies of repeating data to reduce storage consumption (Correct answer)
- Splitting large files into smaller chunks for parallel writes
- Encrypting duplicate files to prevent unauthorized access
Correct answer: Eliminating redundant copies of repeating data to reduce storage consumption
Deduplication identifies and removes duplicate data blocks, storing only unique instances and referencing them where duplicates existed.
CDCP Storage Data Center 2
Which RAID level provides striping with double distributed parity, tolerating up to two simultaneous drive failures?