To learn about the Performance Impacts of Deduplicated Storage Systems, visit KB2660.
This article provides links to vendor-provided best practices documents and vendor-specific configuration advice found in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide. It also offers general recommendations for configuring Veeam Backup & Replication jobs and repositories when utilizing deduplication storage.
By default, the Veeam Backup & Replication settings are primarily optimized for non-deduplication storage. These default settings may have performance impacts or limit the effectiveness of deduplication storage. Specifically, the default configuration may not allow deduplication storage to fully leverage its native compression and deduplication capabilities, resulting in suboptimal space-saving benefits.
Integrated Deduplication Storage Appliances
The following storage appliances directly integrate with Veeam Backup & Replication. When added as a Backup Repository, the software will configure the default repository and job settings to align with the recommendations for that storage. To learn more, review the product pages below:
Dell Data Domain (DD Boost)
Veeam Backup & Replication 12.1
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.
Use a backup target storage system (general-purpose storage system) for short-term primary backups and instruct Veeam to copy the backups to a deduplication storage system for long-term retention.
A variant of this approach is to use a standard server with a battery-backed RAID controller and disks to store the primary backups (cache approach) and use the backup copy to deduplication storage systems for long-term retention.
In addition to the above scenarios, you can create an offsite copy of your data using the following options.
The scenario above reflects general best practices. Please get in touch with your deduplication storage vendor for further guidance and check the vendor links provided above for additional usable scenarios with the specific storage.
Below is general Veeam Backup & Replication configuration advice to be used when backing up to deduplicated storage.
All vendor-documented best practices and vendor-specific advice supersedesthe advice below.
The generic advice below may differ from your storage vendor’s best practices. It is critical that you follow the best practices provided by the storage vendor when possible.
Below are the general recommendations for the Advanced Settings (Storage > Advanced):
Backup Tab
In general, deduplication devices have the lowest performance during read operations. As such, to maximize performance, the backup jobs should be write-only. Configure the backup job to use (Forward) Incremental with weekly Active full backups to achieve this.
**Note:**Some Dedupe Appliances that integrate with Veeam Backup & Replication can perform Synthetic Full operations.
Backup Mode
Maintenance Tab
Storage Tab
Note: Storage that utilizes a non-dedupe zone for storing initially written files, such as ExaGrid’s Landing Zone, may benefit from having Veeam’s deduplication enabled to allow more restore points to be held in that rapid access state before being processed by the storage deduplication system._
**Note:**For storage that utilizes a non-dedupe zone for storing initially written files, such as ExaGrid’s Landing Zone, it is beneficial to set the Block Size to 1MB. A 1MB Block Size will cause Inline Data Deduplication to be more effective, thereby allowing more restore points to be held in that rapid access state before being processed by the storage deduplication system._
Backup Job’s Backup Tab Settings
Backup Job’s Maintenance Tab Settings
Backup Job’s Storage Tab Settings
All vendor-documented best practices and vendor-specific advice supersedesthe advice below.
The generic advice below may differ from your storage vendor’s best practices. It is critical that you follow the best practices provided by the storage vendor when possible.
When targeting deduplicated storage, the backup copy job should be configured as follows to force the backup copy job to perform primarily write-only operations:
*This option should be disabled if:
* The backup copy job will be transferring backups across a low-speed connection. Specifically, a link so slow that transferring the entire full to the destination would be slower than the job creating a full synthetically using data already present on the dedupe storage.
Some offsite connections may be fast enough to perform the full transfer faster than the synthetic creation process. It will come down to comparing the network throughput vs. the read+write speed of the dedupe storage. For example, if the connection used to reach the backup copy destination is 100Mbps (12.5MB/s), and the dedupe storage can create a synthetic full at 40MB/s, the option should be disabled. However, if the connection is 500Mbps (62.5MB/s), that is faster than the dedupe storage in this example, so reading the entire restore point across the network would be quicker.
* The target deduplication appliance backup repository utilizes block cloning functionality.
Block cloning is available with integrated deduplication appliances (HPE StoreOnce Catalyst, Exagrid, Data Domain DDboost, and Quantum DXi)
Backup Copy Example for Local Non-Block Cloning Storage
Backup Copy Example for Low-Speed Connection or Block Cloning Storage
Below are the general recommendations for the Advanced Settings (Target > Advanced):
Maintenance Tab
Storage Tab
**Note:**Storage that utilizes a non-dedupe zone for storing initially written files, such as ExaGrid’s Landing Zone, may benefit from having Veeam’s deduplication enabled to allow more restore points to be held in that rapid access state before being processed by the storage deduplication system._
Backup Copy Job’s Maintenance Tab Settings
Backup Copy Job’s Storage Tab Settings
All vendor-documented best practices and vendor-specific advice supersedesthe advice below.
The generic advice below may differ from your storage vendor’s best practices. It is critical that you follow the best practices provided by the storage vendor when possible.
When creating a new Backup Repository using one of the built-in Deduplication Storage Appliance options, the settings for the repository will be automatically configured to that vendor’s optimized defaults** and should not be changed**.
The settings below are general advice for dedupe storage.
Below are the general recommendations for the Storage Compatibility Settings (Repository_ > Advanced…):_
Align backup file data blocks
Decompress backup file data blocks before storing
This repository is backed by rotated drives
Use per-machine backup files
Vendor | Product | Version | CPE |
---|---|---|---|
veeam | veeam_backup_\&_replication | 12.2 | cpe:2.3:a:veeam:veeam_backup_\&_replication:12.2:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
veeam | veeam_backup_\&_replication | 12.1 | cpe:2.3:a:veeam:veeam_backup_\&_replication:12.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
veeam | veeam_backup_\&_replication | 12 | cpe:2.3:a:veeam:veeam_backup_\&_replication:12:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
veeam | veeam_backup_\&_replication | 11 | cpe:2.3:a:veeam:veeam_backup_\&_replication:11:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |