Performance Impacts of Deduplicated Storage Systems

Generally speaking, storage that implements deduplication excels at reducing the space required to maintain a desired backup retention but has historically come at the cost of higher latency during random read operations, which are used by the features listed above.

The general recommended best practice when using deduplicating storage is to use it as a secondary backup copy location for long-term retention backups, copied from a non-deduplicating storage system that serves as the primary backup target for recent restore points.

However, as deduplication hardware varies considerably, organizations are advised to review their specific RTO and RPO requirements with a value-added reseller or the hardware vendor before finalizing their storage architecture. For example, some solutions include Veeam-specific integrations or SSD-backed architectures, making them viable as primary targets. Storage solutions listed in the Veeam Ready Repository – Primary Target have been validated as suitable for use as primary backup targets, meeting the minimum performance and compatibility requirements that this role demands. The exact performance and sizing requirements may vary, and Veeam recommends checking them with the storage vendor. Veeam collaborates with strategic alliance partners to document these use cases and supports multiple architecture options to suit a broad range of deployment scenarios.

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

Note: Veeam supports the use of all storage systems, including deduplication appliances. For a list of devices that have been tested and validated for compatibility, see the Veeam Ready Program.