Windows 10 Enterprise with ReFS or Server 2019 with ReFS and Windows Deduplication?

[vaicsimmons]

All of the VMs that I am backing up total around 2.5 TB. I am running Veeam B&R on a SuperMicro server with 38 TB of storage. The server is running Server 2012 and is stored in another building on our property so that it is separated from the building that holds our production systems. I am keeping daily backups, 3 weekly backups, 11 monthly backups and 7 yearly backups. I am utilizing Windows Deduplication on the volume holding the weekly, monthly and yearly backups.


Unfortunately, I ran out of space on that server and there was no room in the chassis to add additional drives. I opted to pickup another SuperMicro Server with more drive bays. I am going to store this server in a third building about .5 miles away which is connected to our main office via fiber.


My thoughts are to keep both servers are repositories. That way, I'll have my data in three separate buildings. The server noted above will hold my daily and weekly backups (and maybe monthly backups).
The new server will hold my daily, monthly and yearly backups. It's not vital to retain yearly backups so I am not too worried about only having one copy of yearly backups.


With all of that said, I will likely blow up my current backup infrastructure and start from scratch with these two servers for a number of reasons. In my haste to get a new server, I totally forgot to account for Windows licensing for that server. It happens to be a quad-core Xeon machine with 15 cores per proc. Since Windows Server is licensed by the number of cores, it will be a pretty penny to put Windows Server on this machine.


From my understanding Windows 10 Enterprise supports ReFS and up to 4 processors. I have an extra license of Windows 10 Enterprise that I could throw onto this server. However, I will lose out on Windows Deduplication since it is only applicable to Windows Server.


Is there a big enough advantage to using ReFS and Windows Deduplication to justify running Windows Server 2019 or do you think that I am good using Windows 10 Enterprise with ReFS?

[HannesK]

Hello,
as far as I remember, the combination of REFS with deduplication is not that great (it's slow). I would not go for that. Forum search gave some results

veeam-backup-replication-f2/refs-3-0-an ... 56658.html
post341432.html

I hope that makes your decision easier

I would go with Server 2019 and REFS without deduplication

Best regards,
Hannes

[Gostev]

I recommend either plain ReFS or NTFS+Deduplication.