Performance Impacts of Deduplicated Storage Systems

Applying deduplication to storage systems is a technique used to reduce the space required to maintain a desired backup retention. Deduplicating storage systems are often optimized for sequential write operations and can offer high ingest rates, however, there can be a trade off in the form of higher latency when random read operations are required, as they are with the list of features above.

When using Veeam with a deduplicating storage system, a best practice can be to have a non-duplicating storage system as the primary backup target for the most recent restore points and then use backup copy jobs to store long-term retention on a dedupe storage system.

It is important to note that while this is Veeam’s general recommendation, there is a wide array of different hardware deduplication options, some of which have Veeam-specific features enabled or are built with solid-state drives to improve random read performance. Because of this, Veeam encourages an in-depth recovery time and recovery point requirements discussion with a value-added reseller or the hardware manufacturer to determine how best to leverage deduplicating storage.

Veeam has worked with strategic alliance partners to list these use cases and offers several architecture options to meet the needs of any scenario.

For more information about Deduplication Appliance Best Practices, visit KB1745.

NOTE: Veeam supports the general use of all storage, including deduplication appliances. For a list of devices known to be compatible through testing, please see the Veeam Ready Program.