How to enable Data Deduplication in Windows 2012
Leave a Reply
In this post I’ll look at how to install and setup Data Deduplication in Windows 2012. It’s the same process for Windows 2012 R2.
1. Open Server Manager, select Manager, select Add Roles and Features, follow the prompts until you get to Server Roles. Expand File and Storage Services, expand File and iSCSI Services, and select Data Deduplication. Click Next, Next, Install.
2. Now Data Deduplication is installed, I would recommend running the DDPEval.exe command on the volume you intend to use Data Deduplication with. This will give you an estimate of the amount of disk space you will save. Note – you can only run this on a volume before you have configured Data Deduplication on that volume.
3. Once you are happy with the estimated space savings in Server Manager, select File and Storage Services, select Volumes. Right click the volume you would like to enable Data Deduplication on, and select Configure Data Deduplication.
4. Check the Enable data deduplication check box. Enter a value in the Deduplicate files older than (in days) option. The default is 5, in the example below i’ve chosen 30 to start off with.
Next, click the Set Deduplication Schedule.
5. Check the box to Enable background optimization, and in the example below i have checked Enabled throughput optimization too.
6. After Data Deduplication been run assess how successful it has been, and tweak any optimization settings as required.
Below is a before and after shot using the settings above.
Useful Resources
Related Posts
