The next step for the lab or so-called home data center: Installing and Configuring Deduplication
I was going to use a USB stick for the Windows Server 2016 OS.
The main reason for this: DEDUPLICATION.
I did start out with a USB stick, but due to performance issues this was changed – read the follow-up post (https://blog.thomasmarcussen.com/follow-up-on-the-home-datacenter-hardware/)
The reason for having the OS on a separate volume: Deduplication is not supported on system or boot volumes. Read more about Deduplication here: About Data Deduplication
Let’s get started
Installing and Configuring Deduplication
- Open an elevated PowerShell prompt
- Execute: Import-Module ServerManager
- Execute: Add-WindowsFeature -Name FS-Data-Deduplication
- Execute: Import-Module Deduplication
Now we installed data Deduplication and it’s ready for configuration.
My Raid 0 volume is D:
The volume will primarily hold Virtual Machines (Hyper-V)
I’m going to execute the following command: Enable-DedupVolume D: -UsageType HyperV
You can read more about the different usage types here: Understanding Data Deduplication
Some quick info for the usage type Hyper-V:
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You can start the optimization job and limited (if needed) the amount of consumed memory for the process: Start-DedupJob -Volume “D:” -Type Optimization -Memory 50
You can get the deduplication status with the command: Get-DedupStatus
The currently saved space on my volume is 46.17 GB
That is for a 2 ISO files and a reference machine for Windows Server 2016 and the reference disks copied to separate folder.
More usefull powershell cmdlets here: Deduplication Cmdlets in Windows PowerShell
I do love deduplication especially for virtual machines, hence most of the basic data is the same.
The disks are also rather expensive so getting the most out of them is preferred.