Storage efficiency

<p>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 <a href="/facts/Storage_Networking_Industry_Association/nWXbIQI2">Storage Networking Industry Association</a> (SNIA) defines storage efficiency in the SNIA Dictionary as follows:
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storage efficiency
        
        =
        
          
            
              
                effective capacity
              
              +
              
                free capacity
              
            
            raw capacity
          
        
        .
      
    
    {\displaystyle {\text{storage efficiency}}={\frac {{\text{effective capacity}}+{\text{free capacity}}}{\text{raw capacity}}}.}

<p>The efficiency of an empty enterprise level system is commonly in the 40–70% range, depending on what combination of <a href="/facts/RAID/IpzWWgog">RAID</a>, 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 <a href="/facts/Data_compression/gMFuY4FT">compression</a> 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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Storage efficiency open-in-new

Storage efficiency