In a tiered storage system with SmartTier, which action best improves performance for data with high I/O activity?

• A. Capacity allocation preferentially from the high-performance tier
• B. Capacity allocation preferentially from the capacity tier
• C. Migration to the low-performance tier
• D. Migration to the high-performance tier

Answer: (D)

SmartTier boosts performance by moving hot, frequently accessed data to faster storage. When data shows high I/O activity, switching that data to the high-performance tier puts it on faster disks with higher IOPS and lower latency, directly reducing response times and increasing throughput. Merely allocating space from the high-performance tier doesn’t guarantee that the active data stays there, and allocating from the capacity tier or moving data to the low-performance tier would not improve, and can even degrade, access speed for those hot items. So migrating the hot data to the high-performance tier leverages the faster hardware where it matters most, delivering the best performance improvement for high I/O workloads.