In Windows Server 2012, Microsoft introduced a Data Deduplication feature to efficiently store, transfer and backup less data. This feature was designed for primary, locally-mounted NTFS data volumes. It can also be used as a backup store.
Used as a data source, CommVault supports:
Rehydrated file level backup and restore.
Full volume block-level backup and restore.
Full volume Image-level backup and restore.
Used as a backup store, CommVault supports:
Use with and without CommVault deduplication.
CommVault Deduplication has many advantages over Windows 2012 data deduplication. CommVault Deduplication:
Stores up to 512 TB of deduplicated data with multiple partitions vs 64 TB for maximum supported volume size for Windows Data Deduplication.
Is able to use shared storage across multiple file and operating systems – not just local NTFS volumes on Windows 2012 server.
Is done as inline operation. Windows Data Deduplication requires the full disk space to land the data resulting in higher disk space requirement until deduplication can occur.
Is application aware to achieve maximum deduplication rate.
Features Client-side deduplication which distributes CPU resource demand and reduces network volume during backup.
Features DASH copy of deduplicated blocks which reduces network volume during auxiliary copy.
Features DASH full of deduplicated blocks which reduces demand on client resources, network volume, and disk I/O during backup.