Objective:
On a Windows 2012 R2 server, enable Deduplication on a new 20 TB D: physical volume. This volume will become a target for Veeam Backup and Replication backups.
Problem:
Deduplication fails to dedupliate anything. Get-DedupStatus always reports 0 B SavedSpace and 0 OptimizedFiles.
PS D:\> Get-DedupStatus FreeSpace SavedSpace OptimizedFiles InPolicyFiles Volume --------- ---------- -------------- ------------- ------ 2 TB 0 B 0 0 D:
Troubleshooting Steps:
- Uninstalled Role/Feature > Deduplication (using GUI)
- Rebooted Server
- Deleted the D: Volume (using GUI)
- Rebooted Server
- Created a new 2 TB D: Volume (using GUI)
- Copied 500 MB of random data from a networked file server to D: (using GUI)
- Made four local copies of that same folder on D: for a total of about 2 GB of data
- Installed Role/Feature > Deduplication (using GUI)
- Did not enable or apply Deduplication to the D: drive just yet
- Ran DDPEVAL.exe D: (the Data Deduplication Savings Evaluation Tool) and received these results
PS D:\> ddpeval.exe D:
Data Deduplication Savings Evaluation Tool
Copyright (c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Evaluated folder: D:
Evaluated folder size: 2.02 GB
Files in evaluated folder: 451
Processed files: 285
Processed files size: 2.02 GB
Optimized files size: 171.26 MB
Space savings: 1.85 GB
Space savings percent: 91
Optimized files size (no compression): 328.66 MB
Space savings (no compression): 1.69 GB
Space savings percent (no compression): 84
Files excluded by policy: 166
Small files (<32KB): 166
Files excluded by error: 0Status 1 of Troubleshooting:
I uninstalled the Deduplication role, rebooted, and reinstalled the Deduplication role. Before applying Deduplication to a newly created volume, I populated that volume with about 2 GB of data. I then used the ddpeval.exe tool to determine the results that I should achieve if Deduplication was enabled on this volume.
Continue Troubleshooting Steps:
- Server Manager > File and Storage Services > Volumes > D: > Configured Data Deduplication > enabled "General purpose file server > Apply
- Used PowerShell > Get-DedupStatus to confirm D: was enabled
- Used PowerShell > Start-DedupJob D: -Type Optimization -Full to manually run Deduplication on volume D:
- Used PowerShell > Get-DedupJob every 2 seconds to monitor the Progress and State of the deduplication job
- The Start-DedupJob always runs less than 1 minute, has a Progress of either 0% or 100%, and has a State of Queued, Running, or Completed.
- Then ran PowerShell > Get-DedupStatus again to check my results
- Results remain 0 B SavedSpace, 0 OptimizedFiles
PowerShell Results
PS D:\> Get-DedupStatus FreeSpace SavedSpace OptimizedFiles InPolicyFiles Volume --------- ---------- -------------- ------------- ------ 2 TB 0 B 0 0 D: PS D:\> Start-DedupJob D: -Type Optimization -Full Type ScheduleType StartTime Progress State Volume ---- ------------ --------- -------- ----- ------ Optimization Manual 0 % Queued D: PS D:\> Get-DedupJob Type ScheduleType StartTime Progress State Volume ---- ------------ --------- -------- ----- ------ Optimization Manual 1:22 PM 0 % Running D: PS D:\> Get-DedupJob Type ScheduleType StartTime Progress State Volume ---- ------------ --------- -------- ----- ------ Optimization Manual 1:22 PM 100 % Completed D: PS D:\> Get-DedupStatus FreeSpace SavedSpace OptimizedFiles InPolicyFiles Volume --------- ---------- -------------- ------------- ------ 2 TB 0 B 0 0 D:
Closing:
I don't have any problems or errors installing or running Deduplication. I simply have no results. More importantly, my Deduplication results do not match the Data Deduplication Savings Evaluation Tool's predictions. How should I further troubleshoot? Thank you for your time.