Data DeDuplication Feature in Windows Server 2012

De-Duplication it’s a new feature which is included in Windows Server 2012 and you can get it in Windows Storage section and today we will see how we can work with that… this is a good features which is introduced by Microsoft within the OS – I was bit surprised but it’s very impressive, basically it will save space in case we have same files lying in the same volume.

I will show you how we can enable that – But this Article is part -2 of my Last Post were I have shown How to work with Storage Spaces in Windows Server 2012 Click Here

Again I will give special thanks to Microsoft Tech Lab

Ok Now we will see how we can enable De-Duplication on a Volume

We will follow the steps as per the LAB – Now we will open a Powershell from a Windows 8 Machine and enable the Deduplication on a volume which on Windows Server 2012.

I have opened ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) in Power Shell it has so many handy features and i love to use it

So i have executed a command as below…

Invoke-command -ComputerName WS2012VMDC -ScriptBlock { Get-WindowsFeature *Deduplication* | Install-WindowsFeature}

After that we will execute a command as

Invoke-command -ComputerName WS2012VMDC -ScriptBlock { Enable-DedupVolume e:}

Invoke-command -ComputerName WS2012VMDC -ScriptBlock { Get-DedupStatus e:}

After running these commands – i will login into the Windows Server 2012 Machine and open Server Manager

In Server Manager Select File and Storage Services and click Disks

Now we will Select the Virtual Disk Pool

And Select E:

Right Click on Volume E: and click on Configure Data Deduplication and it open a Wizard

 You can see the Deduplication is enabled as we have ran the Powershell commands from Windows 8 Machine and it also set to a defualt value of Days as 5 and now we will change it to 0

Click Ok

To do a Testing we will copy a file from C drive to volume E:

Copy a file in our example boot.wim will copy to volume E:

File is Copying to Volume E: – New Look in Windows Server 2012

File is copied and now create a copy of that

Ok Now – i will open a ISE and run a Command as

Start-DedupJob -Type Optimization -Volume E: and hit enter

Now to check the Progress – run a command as Get-DedupJob

After few seconds run the same command just to verify the Job is done

Hummm Now – Lets see the status by running a command as Get-DedupStatus