DeDuplication Licencing for external appliances - do I need it?

[corycar]

We are running BE 2010 r3 and are quicky running out of the 7TB space we use for B2D. We are looking at a Dell DR4100 that does deduplication on the fly. 

I can't seem to find anybody that knows if I need to get licencing to use this device - or will BE just look at it as another "disk" to send data too? (All the dedup is native in the applience).  http://software.dell.com/products/dr4100-disk-backup-appliance/

I know that 2010 has it's own dedup stuff if I buy the licence - but don't know if I need the licence since the external device does the de-dup. 

has anyone used a DR4100? How good was the compression ratio?  the Salesman is telling us that "conservitavely - 15:1 compression is normal  but is often higher". 

We run a Mon-Thurs incremental - and then on Friday a Full backup of all of our servers. We keep the data for 6 days. (everything is duped to tape also). 

thoughts anyone?

THANKS!

[pkh · Accepted solution]

If you have a dedup option licence, then you can use the device as an OST device and BE will use its dedup capability.  If it is connected to a remote server, you can do client-side dedup and store the data straight to the device.

If you do not have the dedup option, BE will only see it as a disk.  When it store the backup data, they are stored as one big file instead of individual items.  This would probably result in a lower dedup ratio.

Nobody can tell you what dedup ratio you will get, it all depends on your data.

[teiva-boy]

You don't need it, you can use a cifs mount off the appliance to back up to. However there are HUGE benefits to the OST integration that has been created in the ecosystem or partners. In some cases its easier management, in many its a huge performance improvement saving datra to the device, sometimes 10x better I've seen with some appliances.