Veeam on Windows Server 2008 R2 vs Windows Server 2012

[sdelacruz]

Hello,
I am looking for some opinions on weather reinstall veeam server on a 2008 R2 vs installing it on a Windows Server 2012. Currently i am running veeam on a Windows Server 2003 (32bit). I have about 3 tb of internal storage for backup files. Everything is working great, except that I do not have the ability to use the new features of Veeam 6.5 such as exchange item recovery, which is very important to us. I will be upgrading my backup storage to 8 TBs of internal storage and redoing my OS partition but still debating either to go with 2008 or 2012.

Are there any benifits of going to 2012 vs 2008?

Thanks in advance!

[Vitaliy S.]

I would suggest upgrading to Windows Server 2012 at least because of the built-in deduplication feature. Btw, do you store your backups on the same server?

[sdelacruz]

My backups are stored on same server. I have a RAID 1 running my OS and VEEAM and a RAID 5 where i have my backup files. (Currently 3 TB, upgrading it to 8.5 TBs)

[Vitaliy S.]

In this case Windows Server 2012 seems like the best way to go

[ccitrano]

Vitaly,

I watched that demo and was amazed. That's pretty big dedup ratios. I haven't played with 2012 yet but am considering it. I just want to make sure that I'm catching one critical piece ...

1. Veeam Dedup - this results in a much smaller Veeam Backup file (.vbk etc...) as the data contained in the file no matter where you move it to has the dedup info contained with in that Veeam recognizes.

2. Windows 2012 Dedup - this takes the Veeam Backup files and further dedups at the OS level. So if I were to move these files to an offsite provider through a copy I would not maintain the 2012 dedup numbers?

Thanks.
Chuck.

[sdelacruz]

Thanks for the great advice. I will then move it to Server 2012.

Thanks

SAM

[Vitaliy S.]

1. Veeam Dedup - this results in a much smaller Veeam Backup file (.vbk etc...) as the data contained in the file no matter where you move it to has the dedup info contained with in that Veeam recognizes.

Correct.

2. Windows 2012 Dedup - this takes the Veeam Backup files and further dedups at the OS level. So if I were to move these files to an offsite provider through a copy I would not maintain the 2012 dedup numbers?

Correct.

Btw, there is a pretty informative topic about Windows Server 2012 and deduplication feature, please check it out guys: Best Practice for MS Server 2012 DeDup Repo