A company is planning to subnet its network for a maximum of 27 hosts. Which subnet mask would provide the needed hosts and leave the fewest unused addresses in each subnet?

To support 27 hosts, we need a block with at least 29 usable addresses (2^5 - 2 = 30 for /27, which gives 255.255.255.224). Option A (/24) provides 254 addresses - too many wasted. Option B (/26) provides 62 addresses - still wasteful. Option D (/28) provides only 14 addresses - insufficient. Option E (/29) provides only 6 addresses - insufficient. The /27 mask (C) is optimal.