Data deduplication in ONTAP is typically applied at which level?

• A. On the entire cluster
• B. Within a volume or aggregate
• C. On individual files only
• D. On tape backups

Answer: (B)

Data deduplication in ONTAP reduces storage by identifying and eliminating duplicate data blocks, and its scope is defined at the level of a volume or the aggregate that contains that volume. This means you enable dedup on a per-volume basis (or on an aggregate to cover multiple volumes), allowing the system to consolidate identical blocks across data within that container while keeping file metadata intact and maintaining performance. It isn’t applied cluster-wide, nor is it limited to individual files or to tape backups—the deduplication work happens inside the chosen storage unit (volume or aggregate), across the data stored there.