Deduplication reduces storage space utilization by using which of the following methods?

Compression reduces data size by re-encoding it into a more compact form, but it is a distinct technology from deduplication, which focuses on eliminating redundant data copies.

Thin provisioning allocates storage space on-demand rather than pre-allocating the full requested amount, which helps with storage efficiency but does not inherently reduce the total amount of unique data stored.

Archiving moves less frequently accessed data to lower-cost storage tiers, which is a data lifecycle management strategy, but it does not reduce storage by eliminating duplicate data blocks.

Deduplication reduces storage space by identifying and storing only a single instance of identical data blocks or files, replacing redundant copies with pointers to the unique stored item. This 'single instance' storage method eliminates duplicate data across the dataset, optimizing storage usage.