Metrics Units

Overview

Metric units are displayed in places such as on timeseries graphs, query value widgets, and top lists.

On timeseries graphs, you can hover your cursor over any graph to see the relevant units. Units must be specified manually, but if no unit is set, order-of-magnitude notation (for example: K, M, and G for thousands, millions, and billions, respectively) is used. If a unit is set, the raw data is automatically converted to readable display units using their relevant orders of magnitude.

For example, if you have a data point that is 3,000,000,000:

If you haven’t specified a unit for this data point, “3G” is displayed.
If you specified this data point is in bytes, “3GB” is displayed.

Units are also displayed at the bottom of timeboard graphs, and metric descriptions are available by selecting Metrics Info from the gear dropdown:

To change a metric unit, navigate to the metric summary page and select a metric. Click Edit under Metadata and select a unit, such as bit or byte from the dropdown menu.

Unit list

The following units may be associated with metrics submitted to Datadog:

type	unit(s)
BYTES	bit / byte (b) / kibibyte(KiB) / mebibyte (MiB) / gibibyte (GB) / tebibyte (TiB) / pebibyte (PiB) / exbibyte (EiB)
TIME	nanosecond (ns) / microsecond (μs) / millisecond (ms) / second (s) / minute (min) / hour (hr) / day / week (wk)
PERCENTAGE	percent_nano (n%) / percent (%) / apdex / fraction
NETWORK	connection (conn) / request (req) / packet (pkt) / segment (seg) / response (rsp) / message (msg) / payload / timeout / datagram / route / session / hop
SYSTEM	process (proc) / thread / host / node / fault / service (svc) / instance / cpu
DISK	file / inode / sector / block (blk)
GENERAL	buffer / error (err) / read (rd) / write (wr) / occurrence / event / time / unit / operation (op) / item / task / worker / resource (res) / garbage collection (gc) / email / sample (smpl) / stage / monitor / location / check / attempt / device (dev) / update (up) / method (mthd) / job / container / execution / throttle / invocation / user / success / build / prediction / exception
DB	table / index (idx) / lock / transaction (tx) / query / row / key / command (cmd) / offset / record / object / cursor / assertion (assert) / scan / document / shard / flush / merge / refresh / fetch / column (col) / commit / wait / ticket / question
CACHE	hit / miss / eviction / get / set
MONEY	dollar ($) / cent (¢) / microdollar (μ$) / euro (€) / pound (£) / pence (p) / yen (¥)
MEMORY	page (pg) / split
FREQUENCY	hertz (Hz) / kilohertz (kHz) / megahertz (MHz) / gigahertz (GHz)
LOGGING	entry
TEMPERATURE	decidegree celsius (d°C) / degree celsius (°C) / degree fahrenheit (°F)
CPU	nanocore (ncores) / microcore (μcores) / millicore (mcores) / core / kilocore (Kcores) / megacore (Mcores) / gigacore (Gcores) / teracore (Tcores) / petacore (Pcores) / exacore (Ecores)
POWER	nanowatt (nW) / microwatt (μW) / milliwatt (mW) / deciwatt (dW) / watt / kilowatt / megawatt / gigawatt / terrawatt
CURRENT	milliampere (mA) / ampere (A)
POTENTIAL	millivolt (mV) / volt (V)
APM	span
SYNTHETICS	run / step

Number formatting

Unitless formatting

For unitless metrics, Datadog uses the SI prefixes K, M, G, and T. After T, numbers are converted to exponential notation, which is also used for tiny numbers. By default, Datadog rounds to two decimal places. For exponential notation, the default is zero decimal places.

Examples

Raw value	Formatted
1	1
2.7182818284	2.72
1337	1.34K
31536000	31.54M
4294967296	4.29G
18446744073709552000	2e19
0.001	1e-3
2.3283064365386963e-10	2e-10
invalid	N/A

Unit handling

Units are automatically formatted on your graphs for readability. To customize how your units are labeled, see Customize your visualizations with unit override.

Examples

Unit	Family	Raw Value	Formatted
byte	bytes	1	1 B
kibibyte	bytes	1234235	1.18 GiB
kibibyte	bytes	45457878236741230000	40374.71 EiB
hertz	frequency	6345223	6.35 MHz
cent	money	1337	13.37 $
nanosecond	time	0	0s
second	time	0.03212	32.12ms