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Deduplicating Backup Exec BKF Files

rburkholder
Not applicable

We store our Backup Exec 2014 backups locally on a Windows Storage Server 2012 NAS and then duplicate to tape. I am thinking about enabling Windows deduplication on the NAS to make better use of the space available for backups. Other than increasing the RTO/RPO would this have any negative impact on Backup Exec?

2 REPLIES 2

CraigV
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It won't dedupe those files but may make the backups slower, both in writing to disk, and reading from them.

Thanks!

Colin_Weaver
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As per Page 299 of the BE 15 FP4 admin guide bascially states that we dont let you deduplicate the disk storage if we detect it is enabeld on ceration AND although you can enable it afterwards it is not recommended as per this text.

 

Note: If Windows data deduplication is enabled on the disk storage volume, Backup Exec excludes the backup data in the folder \BEData from deduplication, unless the \BEData folder already exists. Backup Exec must exclude backup data from deduplication for you to use Simplified Disaster Recovery (SDR) to perform a local recovery of the Backup Exec server . If Windows data deduplication is enabled on the disk storage volume, local disaster recovery using SDR fails. The Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) that SDR uses cannot read the files that Windows data deduplication processes.

 

 

CraigVs comment about performance is also  a potential reason not to do it.