CompTIA Storage+

MaxBurn

Storage Is My Life
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I just went through a truncated A+ and Network+ through work which was a nice perk and my rather low opinion I had from reading a book and easily passing A+ in 03 has gone up quite a bit. The course materials are rather through but I haven't gone through the certification process yet. They also expire now too. They seem to be fairly respectable universal thing to have now.
 

BingBangBop

Storage is cool
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I got my A+, Server+ and Network+ before the expire policy. I'm grandfathered in...

I know nothing about their storage+ cert.
 

MaxBurn

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My A+ is also grandfathered but I think it would be better to update it to current rather than stick with the one from 03.
 

Handruin

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Do employers still look favorably upon the A+ certifications these days? I haven't heard anyone mention the server+ cert here at work yet, let alone anyone ever mention having or taking any of the *+ certs.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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My A+ is also grandfathered but I think it would be better to update it to current rather than stick with the one from 03.

If you re-take, you lose your permanent certification status and you'll have to re-take every two years thereafter. A factor to consider in this is that CompTIA tests are really expensive for professional certification exams. Security+ cost me around $225 and Network+ is the same. There are two sections of A+ and I believe they're priced lower than that, but still something north of $300 to re-certify.

A+ and N+ in particular are seen as entry level credentials. They're occasionally important for people in the early part of their career and at times it's useful to have them to meet some kind of contracting requirement, especially when a shop needs people to fill out body count for specific roles, but the skills demonstrated by those certs are mostly skills we would assume an IT worker would have, almost without regard to their skillset or role.

That said, I've met DBAs and Security Analysts with no fucking clue about hardware or IP networking and I've certainly dealt with managers who think terms like 802.11 and VOIP are alien moon language even as their employees use the terms every day, which is why the certs do still matter.

Nitsirk went through my A+ class several years ago because she suspected that she was being taken for a ride by the guys she contracted her IT work to, which speaks to another aspect of the value of A+.

There are also cases where the A+ and N+ are considered foundational for vendor-specific certification programs. At one time, Compaq and Dell both required them for candidates who wanted their field service tech certs, and my many of steelworkers qualify for a different pay grade if they're certified electricians who have also obtained A+.

Security+ is mandated for anyone who does IT contracting work for the US DoD. That might be its biggest application, but it's still a big, important deal.

I don't pay as much attention to demand for Server+. I haven't ever been asked to teach it, though I am certified.

I've been told that demand for general purpose CompTIA certs is decent and steady compared to Microsoft stuff, mainly because Microsoft killed the credential everyone has heard of (MCSE) for an array of overly specialized options that assume a greater dependency on Microsoft technologies than probably exists in reality. At this point, it's assumed that IT guys can handle basic Active Directory and group policy and deployment stuff and disaster recovery, and probably anything beyond that involves some specialist who has a lot more on his or her resume than just a Microsoft cert for Active Directory architecture or SQL Server administration.

I've heard that virtualization and security things are big tickets for IT right now. Personally, I'm a generalist and I'm comfortable with that. Microsoft-wise, I know Sharepoint Development and Administration is something that's being pushed; in a lot of cases, some business unit or department will roll their own Sharepoint system outside the purview of IT and then they'll have to bring in someone to manage it, and that there's money to be made there.

Storage+ seems like it might touch on a lot of stuff that's important for a generalist to know, like Backup systems, NAS and SAN tech. I have no idea whether there will be a demand for it, but it's close to a lot of common interests among folks here and I can't imagine that being able to claim general familiarity with those things would actually hurt anybody when their resume is being evaluated.
 

MaxBurn

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I have convinced at least one member of management here that A+ should be entry level or equivalent experience for our job hirings, they are sort of seeing the light after we have so many problems with people dealing with email attachments, zip files and programming in an IP address let alone dealing with bacnet and modbuss communications. The excuse my company never taught me that doesn't work for me, I can identify people for remedial training but not be a part of the hiring decisions.

My company and I would hope all of yours should be paying for these tests, but no I wasn't aware they were so expensive now. I did my first out of pocket to get a job. Expired? Even if it was I would still mention it, not like the basics are irrelevant when expired.
 

humptydoo

What is this storage?
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I took the Comptia Storage+ certification exam yesterday and passed it... BUT... it was quite a bit different than what I expected. I studied the CBT materials, took the quizzes and practice tests and felt ready for the exam. Approximately 10-20% of the questions actually came from the course material I studied... the majority of the questions were "real world" and what I consider very relevant. You have to really think and reason out situations as presented in the test questions. Hats off to Comptia for coming up with a very competent exam in my opinion.

Has anyone else taken the certification exam? If so... what are your thoughts?

Thanks
 

MaxBurn

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I like hearing real world and relevant test questions, I really should dust off the books and think about taking those exams.
 

mikeymac

What is this storage?
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Aug 22, 2012
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I took the Comptia Storage+ certification exam yesterday and passed it... BUT... it was quite a bit different than what I expected. I studied the CBT materials, took the quizzes and practice tests and felt ready for the exam. Approximately 10-20% of the questions actually came from the course material I studied... the majority of the questions were "real world" and what I consider very relevant. You have to really think and reason out situations as presented in the test questions. Hats off to Comptia for coming up with a very competent exam in my opinion.

Has anyone else taken the certification exam? If so... what are your thoughts?

Thanks

My understanding is that the Storage+ exam is a reworked version of the SNIA Storage Foundations exam. In fact, SNIA is using the CompTIA exam as the first exam in its certification hierarchy. That explains the high quality. I'm looking forward to working on it.

Thanks for posting about your experience. :-D
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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ActualTests.com has a Storage+ download available, but that isn't so much a study aid as a representative sample of the live question pool.
 
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