What is a key benefit of referencing in MongoDB?

Referencing in MongoDB involves creating relationships between different collections through the use of ObjectIDs, allowing documents to link to one another. One of the key benefits of this approach is that it enables the preservation of data normalization principles, leading to no duplication of data. When data is referenced rather than embedded, it helps to keep the size of individual documents smaller, which can lead to improved efficiency in terms of storage and retrieval.

Smaller documents are crucial because MongoDB’s performance can degrade with excessively large documents due to factors like memory usage and the processing power needed to parse and handle larger sizes. By referencing, you can access related data without storing it all within a single document, thus maintaining a lean and manageable database structure.

Additionally, referencing can reduce redundancy, as multiple documents can point to a single shared document instead of creating copies of the same information across different documents. This not only saves space but also simplifies data management since updates need only be made in one location.

In contrast, other choices such as increased read performance or easier management of large documents may not consistently align with the realities of how references work, especially since read performance can depend on multiple factors, including how data is structured and queried. Higher data redundancy directly contradicts the notion of referencing,