2012/10/04

Install volume deduplication from Server 2012 to Windows 8

Server 2012  has a great feature - Deduplication. It can be very effective to optimize storage and reduce the amount of disk space consumed—50% to 90% when applied to the right data. Cause Windows 8 has a Hyper-V 3 too, deduplication will be very usefull for VM vhd storage volume. This is my VM folder example:

And this example taken from Windows 8 =) So, it's possible to install deduplication service to Windows 8 with one caveat - it'll have no GUI. Only possible way to manage it - is Powershell.

If it's ok for you, then download correct version of deduplication service for your Windows 8 build number from here. I'll repeat links here:
Windows 8 Release Preview (build 8400)
Windows 8 Retail (build 9200)
Then install service from elevated prompt:
dism /online /add-package /packagepath:Microsoft-Windows-VdsInterop-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8400.0.cab /packagepath:Microsoft-Windows-VdsInterop-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~6.2.8400.0.cab /packagepath:Microsoft-Windows-FileServer-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8400.0.cab /packagepath:Microsoft-Windows-FileServer-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~6.2.8400.0.cab /packagepath:Microsoft-Windows-Dedup-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8400.0.cab /packagepath:Microsoft-Windows-Dedup-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~en-US~6.2.8400.0.cab
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:Dedup-Core /all
Ok, let's configure some volume!
Enable-DedupVolume E:
By default, the dedupe process will only affect files that have not been changed for 30 days. To disable this use:
Set-DedupVolume E: -MinimumFileAgeDays 0
And we going to start deduplication job, it can take a long time for first run on volume with data
Start-DedupJob E: –Type Optimization
Use such command to view status of this Job:
Get-DedupJob
But it's no need to run such Job every time you changed data on a volume. Installation of service already create some scheduled task for you:

So all you need - just customize time of those tasks for you needs.

UPD 1.07.13
Here is deduplication feature for new Windows 8.1

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