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In Cassandra, how are obsolete values treated during compaction?

  1. They are retained for historical reference

  2. They are discarded and not stored

  3. They are moved to a separate storage area

  4. They are marked as inactive

The correct answer is: They are discarded and not stored

In Cassandra, obsolete values are discarded and not stored during the compaction process. Compaction is an essential operation in Cassandra that merges multiple SSTables (Sorted String Tables) to optimize read performance and reclaim disk space. During this process, any data that is no longer needed—such as values that have been updated or deleted—is removed from the database. This ensures that the storage remains efficient and helps maintain the performance of read operations by minimizing the amount of data that needs to be scanned. The decision to discard obsolete values rather than store them for historical reference or move them to a separate area is crucial for maintaining Cassandra's performance characteristics, particularly in scenarios where large volumes of data are being written and updated frequently. This emphasis on removing unneeded data aligns with Cassandra's design as a high-performance, distributed NoSQL database.