CompTIA Server+ SK0-005 Sample Questions & Practice Test

CompTIA Server+ (SK0-005) is a vendor-neutral route for server administration, hardware, storage, virtualization, security, disaster recovery, and operational troubleshooting.

Use these original IT Mastery sample questions to preview the practical decision style. They are not official CompTIA exam questions.

What these questions test

• selecting server hardware, storage, and virtualization choices for a workload
• applying baseline security, hardening, and access-control practices
• recognizing backup, recovery, and high-availability tradeoffs
• troubleshooting alerts, performance problems, and hardware failures

Sample Exam Questions

Question 1

Topic: storage redundancy

A server needs tolerance for one disk failure while keeping usable capacity higher than mirroring. Which RAID level is the best fit?

• A. RAID 0
• B. RAID 5
• C. No RAID
• D. Single disk

Best answer: B

Explanation: RAID 5 uses parity and can tolerate one disk failure while providing more usable capacity than a simple mirror. RAID 0 offers no fault tolerance.

Question 2

Topic: backups

A backup job reports success, but no one has tested restores for six months. What is the main risk?

• A. The server has too much memory
• B. The backup window is too short to matter
• C. Restore testing is never necessary
• D. The organization may not be able to recover when needed

Best answer: D

Explanation: A backup is only useful if it can be restored. Restore testing validates media, permissions, procedures, and recovery time assumptions.

Question 3

Topic: virtualization

A virtual machine is CPU-ready and slow while the host shows high contention. What is the likely issue?

• A. Too many virtual CPUs or overloaded host resources
• B. A missing keyboard
• C. The wrong monitor cable
• D. Unused rack labels

Best answer: A

Explanation: CPU ready time indicates a virtual machine is waiting for scheduler access to physical CPU resources. Overallocation can hurt performance.

Question 4

Topic: server hardening

Which action is most consistent with server hardening?

• A. Enable every service for convenience
• B. Share administrator passwords
• C. Disable unused services and apply least-privilege access
• D. Remove audit logs

Best answer: C

Explanation: Hardening reduces attack surface and limits privilege. Unused services, shared credentials, and missing logs increase risk.

Question 5

Topic: power

A server must remain online during brief power interruptions and shut down safely during longer outages. What should be used?

• A. A longer display cable
• B. UPS with monitoring and shutdown integration
• C. A faster mouse
• D. Public Wi-Fi

Best answer: B

Explanation: A UPS can bridge short outages and trigger controlled shutdown when battery runtime is insufficient.

Question 6

Topic: monitoring

Disk latency has increased and users report slow file access. Which evidence is most useful?

• A. Office floor plan
• B. Printer page count only
• C. Keyboard layout
• D. Storage performance counters, queue depth, errors, and recent change history

Best answer: D

Explanation: Storage troubleshooting needs latency, queue, error, and change evidence. The goal is to isolate capacity, contention, hardware, or configuration causes.

Question 7

Topic: high availability

Two servers are in the same rack and share one power circuit. What availability risk remains?

• A. Rack or circuit failure can affect both servers
• B. The servers are too redundant
• C. Users cannot authenticate because there are two servers
• D. Backups are impossible

Best answer: A

Explanation: High availability must consider shared dependencies. Same-rack and same-circuit placement can leave a single point of failure.

Question 8

Topic: patching

A critical security patch requires a reboot. What is the best operational approach?

• A. Ignore the patch forever
• B. Reboot without telling anyone during peak use
• C. Schedule the change, notify stakeholders, test where possible, and confirm service health after reboot
• D. Delete the server logs

Best answer: C

Explanation: Server patching should follow change management: planning, communication, testing, implementation, and validation.

Question 9

Topic: access control

An administrator needs temporary elevated access for a maintenance window. Which pattern is safest?

• A. Permanent shared root access
• B. Time-bound privileged access with logging
• C. Anonymous administrator access
• D. Emailing passwords to the team

Best answer: B

Explanation: Time-bound privileged access supports least privilege and accountability while still enabling maintenance.

Question 10

Topic: disaster recovery

What does recovery time objective measure?

• A. How many disks fit in a rack
• B. The number of login attempts allowed
• C. The server’s clock speed
• D. How quickly service should be restored after disruption

Best answer: D

Explanation: RTO is the target time to restore service. It differs from RPO, which concerns acceptable data loss measured in time.

Question 11

Topic: hardware failure

A server reports corrected memory errors that are increasing over time. What should the administrator do?

• A. Plan memory diagnostics and replacement before the errors become uncorrectable
• B. Disable all monitoring
• C. Ignore the trend because errors are corrected
• D. Replace the network cable first

Best answer: A

Explanation: Increasing corrected memory errors can indicate deteriorating hardware. Administrators should investigate and remediate before failure affects availability.

Question 12

Topic: documentation

Why should server build standards be documented?

• A. They replace all monitoring
• B. They make backups unnecessary
• C. They improve consistency, troubleshooting, recovery, and auditability
• D. They guarantee hardware never fails

Best answer: C

Explanation: Documentation supports repeatability and operations. It does not eliminate the need for monitoring, backups, or maintenance.