Question 19 - CompTIA A+ 220-1201 (Core 1) Real Exam Questions [Jan 2026 Update]

Q: 19

SIMULATION A user reports poor performance on the application server. INSTRUCTIONS Click on Server 1 and Server 2 and review the information presented in each chart to determine which drives need to be replaced. Select the appropriate replacement drive that should be used, for the least performance degradation to the server. If at any time you would like to bring back the initial state of the simulation, please click the Reset All button.

Your Answer

Correct Answer:

REPLACE THE FAILED DRIVE IN SERVER 2 WITH A 4TB SAS 15K RPM DRIVE.

REPLACE PHYSICAL DISK 1:2 IN SERVER 1 WITH A 4TB SAS 15K RPM DRIVE.

Explanation

Two separate disk issues must be addressed.

First, Server 2's RAID-5 array is in a "Degraded" state, which indicates a complete drive failure. This is the primary cause of the reported performance issues, as the system must perform real-time data reconstruction using parity. The original failed drive was a 2TB, 7200rpm SAS HDD. Since an identical replacement is not available, the best option is the 4TB SAS 15k rpm drive. RAID controllers require replacement drives to have the same interface (SAS) and be of equal or greater capacity. The controller will partition the new drive to match the 2TB size of the others in the array.

Second, Server 1 has a disk (Physical disk 1:2) with a "Failure predicted" status. This is a S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) alert indicating imminent failure. This drive must be proactively replaced to prevent Server 1 from also entering a degraded state. The existing drives are 4TB, 15k rpm SAS HDDs, and an identical replacement is available.

References

Patterson, D. A., & Hennessy, J. L. (2017). Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition. Morgan Kaufmann. Chapter 5 discusses RAID levels, noting that RAID-5 can withstand a single failure but operates in a degraded mode with significant performance loss until the failed disk is replaced and the array is rebuilt.

Hamerly, G., & Elkan, C. (2001). Bayesian approaches to failure prediction for disk drives. In Eighteenth International Conference on Machine Learning, 205-212. This paper discusses the use of S.M.A.R.T. attributes for predicting drive failures, validating the "Failure predicted" warning as an actionable alert.

Silberschatz, A., Galvin, P. B., & Gagne, G. (2018). Operating System Concepts (10th ed.). Wiley. In the chapter on Mass-Storage Systems, the principles of RAID management are detailed. It is established practice when replacing a failed drive in an array to use a drive of the same type and with a capacity equal to or greater than the failed drive to ensure compatibility for the array rebuild process.

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