This report displays deduplication and data reduction on platforms that support deduplication. You can view this information in a chart by selecting the graphical button. (See Other report options.)
Data reduction, whether it is compression or deduplication, is the substitution of processor, memory, and disk I/O for disk storage space. For systems that support deduplication, the data reduction ratio is measured by combining the space savings achieved through compression and deduplication.
The data reduction ratio is represented as follows, where:
For example, if your data reduction ratio is 2.5, then for every 2.5 GB of raw data being backed up from your clients, the Unitrends system is using only 1 GB of data.
Prior to Unitrends release 5, all data reduction was accomplished using compression. Starting with release 5 and the introduction of Unitrends’ adaptive deduplication, data reduction is accomplished using both compression and deduplication for platforms that support deduplication. The deduplication ratio is a measure of the space saved by deduplication, and is represented where:
If using the graphical view, the chart depicts both the system’s data reduction and deduplication ratios in a graphical manner. The date that the ratios were gathered is shown along the x-axis, while the data reduction (the orange bars) and deduplication (the green line) ratios are shown on the y-axis.
The data reduction and deduplication ratios vary widely based on the following environmental variables:
| • | The type and amount of data being backed up, including how much data is being backed up with file-based backups and how much with application backups. |
| • | The backup types and schedules for clients being protected (frequency of master and differential backups). |
| • | The level of commonality among clients’ operating systems. |
| • | The frequency and degree of data that is changed (lower change rates will see higher data reduction ratios). |
| • | The retention of the data (longer retention periods will see higher data reduction ratios.) |
| • | The specifics of the data reduction algorithms being used. |
On a day-to-day basis, you should expect to see variations in your system’s data reduction and deduplication ratios, depending on the clients’ operating systems and filesystem sizes, as well as the backup types and schedules and amount of available system device space. A typical schedule of weekend master backups followed by daily differential backups during the week will cause the system to exhibit higher levels of deduplication after the masters complete. This occurs because the client’s latest master backup and its latest differential are not considered for deduplication until another successful master backup has completed. This will be seen in the chart as deduplication and data reduction ratios rise after a master backup, and then trend downward as the differentials are completed. They will be seen to rise again after the next master backup has completed because the prior master and differentials are then deduplicated. Over time, higher levels of retention (i.e., increased numbers of master backups on the system for each client) will be seen, and will also be reflected by a higher deduplication ratio.