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 datapoint that is 3,000,000,000:
- If you haven’t specified a unit for this datapoint, “3G” is displayed.
- If you specified this datapoint is in bytes, “3GB” is displayed.
Click the full screen button on the top right-hand corner of the graph to see the units displayed at the bottom:
On a metric graph, click on the context menu (three vertical dots) to find the Metrics Info option. This opens a panel with a description of the metric. Clicking on the metric name in this panel opens the metric in the metric summary page for further analysis or edits.
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 |
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 |
Time units between a minute and a year are split into multiple units to be more human-readable. The following conventions apply:
- Short times are formatted in decimal form.
- The smallest time unit is nanoseconds.
- Long times are formatted as days in decimal form.
Examples
| Raw seconds | Formatted |
|---|
| 0.00123 | 1.23ms |
| 0.00012345 | 123.45μs (microseconds) |
| 1.2345e-9 | 1.23ns |
| 95 | 1m 35s |
| 3671 | 1h 1m |
| 86390 | 1d |
| 96400 | 1d 3h |
| 52596400 | 608.75 days |
Further Reading
Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:
