Windows 2012 Deduplication - work on vhdx?

[frankive]

This is perhaps a Windows Server question and not related to Veeam, so please move this post if the topic is not applying to this forum.

I am designing a Veeam infrastructure for a client and he wonders if he should virtualize the veeam on a management server. He has a qnap connected with iscsi to this management server. He wants to reduplicate this storage.
I have this solution for him:

* Deduplicate the storage with Windows Server 2012 (the qnap) and make it a pas-through disc to the veeam VM.
* Make a .vhdx file on the qnap and attach it to the veeam VM.

In option nr.2 I am not really sure, will the Server 2012 be intelligent enough to reduplicate the data inside the .vhdx to veeam? Or will the reduplication just see a large .vhdx and have no idea whats inside and threat it just like a large file?

Will option 1 benefit this customer best?

[frankive]

Is there no best practice for this scenario?

[Gostev]

Hi Frank, I personally am confused with your question. I am not sure I understand your proposed architecture, and specifically "reduplication" term. And I guess I am not the only one

[frankive]

Aha, then i will try again..

1 backup server with a qnap iscsi target attached.

Customer wants to run a virtual machine on this backup server with veeam installed. He then wishes to create .vhdx files to store on the qnap. The .vhdx files will store the veeam backup data.
He also want to use Windows Server 2012 Deduplication feature.
My concern is that when we enable the 2012 Deduplicateon feature on his Qnap, the benefit willl be small since Windows Server 2012 will not see all the same block inside the .vhdx file but just as a large files.

My recommendation is by now that he installed Veeam backup server native (with no virtualized Veeam server) and store the files directly on the qnap iscs target (NOT as .vhdx files). Then windows server 2012 will be 100% good to start its reduplication.
An alternative, as far as I see, is to create a virtualized Veeam server, but attach the qnap "native" to the vm (pass-thorough) for storage of the backup files. Then Windows Server 2012 perhaps would still be able to do reduplication, but i am not sure on this since then qnap will be offline on the host when it is a pass-through in the vm..

How did i frame my question now?

[Gostev]

The way you present storage to a Windows server (internal storage, VHDX, iSCSI target) doesn't matter. This will not impact Windows Server 2012 dedupe anyhow. Dedupe is the OS feature that can be enabled on any volume, no matter what storage is behind that volume.

But I like your iSCSI target suggestion better... why add unnecessary level of storage virtualization into the picture? There is no point to use VHDX.

[frankive]

Excellent.

Thanks!

[nunciate]

I thought I would share some of my Windows 2012 R2 deduplication numbers.
I have 3 drives on a physical HP server. Each drive has a 18.1Tb capacity.
Each has deduplication turned on and set-up to run every 1 days.
I did exclude some of my backups. I exclude backups with a VBK larger than 1 Tb. That would be about 5 out of 25 jobs I run.
All of my jobs are forever incremental with a transform to full on Friday night.
The jobs all use inline deduplication, no compression and WAN Optimized block size.


Drive 1: 11.1Tb Used after Dedup / 17.7 Used Before Dedupe
Drive 2: 6.88Tb Used after Dedup / 11.8 Used Before Dedupe
Drive 3: 11.0Tb Used after Dedup / 14.6 Used Before Dedupe

I did noticed that some of my Friday transforms take longer than expected. I have not confirmed that this is due to re-hydration of the file yet but suspect it may be part of the issue.

[frankive]

If i enable deduplication on a volume which i take offline (so i can attache it as a pass-thourgh disc to a vm running Veeam), will the volume be dedplicated? Or should i enable deduplication INSIDE the vm that has the volume attached as a pass-through?

[Gostev]

You always enabled deduplication inside the VM, as it is a guest OS feature.

[frankive]

Great. In the the vm is "gone" and i make the volume online on the hyper-v host directly and enable deduplication on the hyper-v host and on that volume I can gain access to the files without problem too?

[foggy]

Yes, deduplication metada is stored within the volume, so you will be able to mount the volume to any other system with Deduplication feature enabled and read the files.

[veremin]

Though, make sure that the server version is the same or higher. 2012 volume -> 2012 host, 2012 R2 volume -> 2012 R2 host, 2012 volume -> 2012 R2 host. Thanks.

[frankive]

Excellent, thanks!
Just enabled the deduplication feature in the vm now. looking forward to see the results on the pass-through volume.

[foggy]

It would be great if you could share some numbers here.