topic Re: Windows Server 2012 De-Duplication with Nimble Compression in Application Integration

Windows Server 2012 De-Duplication with Nimble Compression

crw64 — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 01:09:04 GMT

With Nimble's compression, would there be much of a space savings with using Windows 2012's de-duplication feature on file servers?

Re: Windows Server 2012 De-Duplication with Nimble Compression

jrich52352 — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 16:38:43 GMT

Since the dedup is done at the windows level it wont make any difference if you use nimble or not.

however the advantage might be in the architecture.

if you have 100GB of data and windows is able to dedup that down to 50GB, you're IO requirements will be higher.

lets then say that nimble can get that down to 40GB.

you then end up with some really hard hit disks. because nimble uses the compression and SSD's you could get better performance out of it because you'll get better use of the SSD/caching technology.

Re: Windows Server 2012 De-Duplication with Nimble Compression

Nick_Dyer — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 16:50:07 GMT

From a Nimble perspective it's advisable not to use host-based de-dupe/compression if possible - reason being it could impact the array based compression and layout of the blocks on spindles as it runs it's processing on the volume (which in turn, could produce larger than required snapshots due to blocks being changed/moved).

It's a similar reason why we don't recommend running Windows Defrag.

Re: Windows Server 2012 De-Duplication with Nimble Compression

crw64 — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:44:52 GMT

Thanks for the information guys, it makes sense.

One additional question. Since we are perspective buyer is there access to the setup/admin guide to review prior to receiving the array and having an engineer onsite to set it up? I would be interested in reviewing the best practices and what have you, but it appears as though some resources are unavailable to those who are not a customer?

Re: Windows Server 2012 De-Duplication with Nimble Compression

Nick_Dyer — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:54:51 GMT

Hi Corey,

You can sign up as a new user on Infosight (Nimble InfoSight) - select the "New User? Enrol Now" link at the bottom of the page.

From here, you want to select the user type of "Downloads Only" - this will allow you to reach the Install & Configuration guides, Best Practice Guides and other useful docs.

If all else fails - send a note to your friendly Nimble SE who would be happy to help!