AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate (legacy) — Question 594

A SysOps Administrator needs an Amazon EBS volume type for a big data application. The application data is accessed infrequently and stored sequentially.
What EBS volume type will be the MOST cost-effective solution?

Answer options

• A. Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1)
• B. Cold HDD (sc1)
• C. Throughput Optimized HDD (st1)
• D. General Purpose SSD (gp2)

Correct answer: B

Explanation

Cold HDD (sc1) is the most cost-effective Amazon EBS volume type designed specifically for infrequently accessed, sequential workloads. Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) is optimized for frequent access and is more expensive, while SSD-backed volumes like General Purpose SSD (gp2) and Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) are meant for high-performance transactional workloads and are not cost-efficient for this scenario.