Lesson plan

Storage efficiency

Storage efficiency is the ability to store and manage data that consumes the least amount of space with little to no impact on performance; resulting in a lower total operational cost. Efficiency addresses the real-world demands of managing costs, reducing complexity and limiting risk. The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) defines storage efficiency in the SNIA Dictionary as follows: : \text{storage efficiency} = \frac{\text{effective capacity} + \text{free capacity}}{\text{raw capacity}}. The efficiency of an empty enterprise level system is commonly in the 40–70% range, depending on what combination of RAID, mirroring and other data protection technologies are deployed, and may be even lower for highly redundant remotely mirrored systems. As data is stored on the system, technologies such as deduplication and compression may store data at a greater than 1-to-1 data size-to-space consumed ratio, and efficiency rises, often to over 100% for primary data, and thousands of percent for backup data.

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Article summary

Storage efficiency is the ability to store and manage data that consumes the least amount of space with little to no impact on performance; resulting in a lower total operational cost. Efficiency addresses the real-world demands of managing costs, reducing complexity and limiting risk. The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) defines storage efficiency in the SNIA Dictionary as follows: : \text{storage efficiency} = \frac{\text{effective capacity} + \text{free capacity}}{\text{raw capacity}}. The efficiency of an empty enterprise level system is commonly in the 40–70% range, depending on what combination of RAID, mirroring and other data protection technologies are deployed, and may be even lower for highly redundant remotely mirrored systems. As data is stored on the system, technologies such as deduplication and compression may store data at a greater than 1-to-1 data size-to-space consumed ratio, and efficiency rises, often to over 100% for primary data, and thousands of percent for backup data.

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Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.