AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Practice Exam

What should you do when an EBS volume shows a status of error?

1. Terminate the EC2 instance using the EBS volume

2. Restore from a backup and reattach the volume

3. Replace the hardware underlying the EBS volume

4. Understand that the data on the volume cannot be restored

The correct answer is: Understand that the data on the volume cannot be restored

When an EBS (Elastic Block Store) volume shows a status of error, it typically indicates that there is a problem with the volume which may involve data integrity issues or hardware malfunctions. In such cases, understanding the implications of the status is critical for next steps. Recognizing that the data on the volume may not be restorable is important because an error status can signify significant issues that compromise the data stored within that volume. Often, AWS provides resilience and reliability for EBS volumes, but an error status can represent a failure mode where data could be lost or corrupted beyond recovery. This understanding helps administrators to take preemptive actions, like ensuring regular backups or using snapshots to minimize data loss risks in the future. While restoring from a backup and reattaching the volume might initially seem reasonable, it is contingent on having an intact backup. There's no assurance of successful restoration if the EBS volume is in an unrecoverable state. Simply terminating the EC2 instance using the EBS volume does not address the underlying issue and could lead to further complications. Regarding hardware replacement, EBS volumes abstract the underlying hardware, and end-users do not have direct access to or control over the physical infrastructure of EBS. Thus, that approach is not applicable