Veeam v6 and StarWind Global Deduplication

[nguyent]

Hi Everyone,
Does everybody try out this one yet?
Thanks
Nguyent

[Gostev]

We tried, fairly decent dedupe between backups. For best results, you need to enable align in the backup repository settings, but this checkbox does not work properly without additional registry settings (fixed in 6.1).

[nguyent]

Gostev,
Did you install starwind on the same Veeam server? Any tips for install and configure?
Thanks
Nguyent

[Gostev]

I did not do the actual install, but it was installed on the backup repository server. I believe we used 4K block size in StarWind settings. Foggy can provide more info on that

[nguyent]

Thanks, I will try to contact Foggy.

[lobo519]

Is it just software run on a windows box or is the full SAN software? Details were pretty lacking in that Email and the links...

[dellock6]

I played in the past with Starwind software and also wrote a couple of whitepapers for them, but before they introduced the deduplication. I would say it's still a software that runs on top of Windows, so you create a SAN by using a physical server fully loaded of disks, install Windows Server on top of it, and then Starwind software to expose the storage via iscsi.

Luca.

[foggy]

In our lab I believe we got dedupe ratios in 1.5:1.8 range on jobs with low or disabled compression. We used all the default settings while creating dedupe disk in StarWind, so it was 4K block and 64MB memory cache size. Although, the guys from StarWind recommend setting the cache to at least 1GB to get more appropriate speed. No other installation tips come to my mind at the moment.

[jnalldr]

I'd like some more info on this as well. I've got a single physical Veeam backup server with 18 TB of disk space via DAS (Dell MD1200). Would I need to create a Virtual Deduplication Disk in the StarWind software and then present this via iSCSI to the local server? Seems like it would be a lot of overhead to access storage connected to the same physical box.

[nguyent]

Foggy,
Thanks, I did create Deduplicated Disk Device and backup to it. It works well. However I can not see where I can modify device such as increase or decrease the size.
Tan

[Gostev]

Tan, you might be better of asking StarWind related questions on their forum, instead of here. At least until this community accumulates enough StarWind knowledge to assist all Veeam users right away

[bohdan]

Hi.
You may ask StarWind relative questions on StarWind Software forum http://www.starwindsoftware.com/forums/ ... t2793.html

[nguyent]

Thanks for reply. I did find out the answer. It works well for me. I have 2.7x for Dedupe and 2.0x for compression on QNAP NAS.
Tan

[KOOLER]

Do you mean StarWind managed to have 1:2.7 ratio using QNAP NAS as a RAW storage? What 1:2 compression did you get? With dedupe or on top of dedupe?

Thanks for reply. I did find out the answer. It works well for me. I have 2.7x for Dedupe and 2.0x for compression on QNAP NAS.
Tan

[Spex]

I just finished my tests regarding Starwind - most important problems are:
- Deduplication only per LUN
- Deduplication need's a lot of ram 3,5 GByte per TByte used
- Starwind has no compression included - since it's best practise to turn off compression at veeam for better dedupe ratio you loose some efficency

[Anatoly]

Hello Gentleman,

I am Solution Engineer at StarWind Softare Inc.

First of all I`d like to kindly remind that we will be really glad to assist you and answer your StarWind related questions on our forum. we have created dedicated thread there or you can simply post your question by using this link.

And now about the questions:

I just finished my tests regarding Starwind - most important problems are:
- Deduplication only per LUN
- Deduplication need's a lot of ram 3,5 GByte per TByte used
- Starwind has no compression included - since it's best practise to turn off compression at veeam for better dedupe ratio you loose some efficency

-Yes, we`ve got in-line DD per LUN, and this is much better then Deduplication per VM, I think.
-This value will be decreased in our next version down to 2 GB per TB. Even now I dont think that 3.5 GB is too much.
-We haven`t got it for now, and we`ll have it in next builds. Stay tuned

Thanks, I did create Deduplicated Disk Device and backup to it. It works well. However I can not see where I can modify device such as increase or decrease the size.

This functionality (increasing of the space on the device) will be added in one of our next versions.

[Gostev]

I think what Stefan is saying is that deduplication across LUNs would be beneficial. Glad to hear you are addressing other points though.