Data reduction
Data reduction techniques reduce the amount of physical drive capacity that is needed to store the host-accessible, replicated, and snapshot data.
- Thin provisioning: It provides dynamic allocation of physical storage only when data is written.
- Compression: Compression encodes data as it is written to reduce the disk space consumed. Data is decoded when it is read.
- Deduplication: It removes duplicate data blocks by storing single physical copy of identical data blocks.
You can use the management GUI to determine the capacity savings that are created. The Capacity section on the GUI Dashboard shows an overall view of the system capacity. An FCM-based system shows Physical Capacity, Logical Capacity, and Carousel section that includes capacity savings, capacity breakdown, and provisioned capacity. Whereas a non FCM-based system shows Usable Capacity types and Capacity Savings details. For more information, see Capacity.
Data reduction by using Flash Core Modules (FCM)
All Flash Core Modules (FCMs) provide compression and thin-provisioning. FCM5 adds deduplication capability. Deduplication is performed as a background activity, identifying and removing duplicate data blocks in each drive without performance impact.
Data reduction by using Data Reduction Pools
For information about using data reduction pools on supported systems, see Data reduction pools.