Deduplication on SNC NAS: UI Configurations and Impact on Capacity Utilization

Transcription

1 Deduplication on SNC NAS: UI Configurations and Impact on Capacity Utilization Application Note Abstract This application note describes how to configure the deduplication function on SNC NAS systems, and provides several examples of how deduplication can achieve significant capacity reductions in typical application environments.

2 Table of Contents Product Models Covered by This Document... 3 SNC NAS Unified Storage Systems... 4 Deduplication on SNC NAS Pro... 5 Setting Up Deduplication on SNC NAS Pro... 6 Step 1: Create Storage Pool... 6 Step 2: Create Shared Volume... 7 Step 3: Set Up Sharing... 7 File Server Capacity Reduction with Deduplication... 9 Data Backup Capacity Reduction with Deduplication... 9 VMDK Capacity Reduction with Deduplication

3 Product Models Covered by This Document This application note applies to the following product models: SNC NAS 200 SNC NAS 500 SNC NAS 800 SNC NAS 1100 For more information regarding individual product models, please visit 3

4 SNC NAS Unified Storage Systems SNC NAS offers a complete solution for data storage, file sharing and data backup ideal for SMBs and SOHO users. The SNC NAS systems consolidate server and storage requirements in a single device, and support a wide array of protocols to ensure data can be shared by all workstations in the office. System resources on SNC NAS can be optimized with data deduplication, while diverse protection and backup features protect valuable data assets. For more information about SNC NAS systems, please visit 4

5 Deduplication on SNC NAS Application environments often feature many redundant copies of identical data sets. Storing these redundant copies consumes large amounts of storage space, leading to inefficient use of capacity and increasing costs associated with hardware resources and power consumption. Deduplication technology is designed to combat this phenomenon. Deduplication ensures that all duplicated data is removed, freeing up capacity that would be otherwise unnecessarily filled. Storage system users can thereby optimize capacity utilization and save costs, as they can get much more mileage out of their initial storage acquisition. Data deduplication on the SNC NAS systems is implemented on the block level. In-line deduplication ensures that duplication calculations are performed as data enters the storage systems, meaning deduplication occurs in real-time. When the system detects a duplicated copy, only a pointer is created to reference to the existing data block already present in the system. 5

6 Setting Up Deduplication on SNC NAS Step 1: Create Storage Pool First create a storage pool with the help of the SNC NAS web-based management UI. Go to Storage > Pool. Click on Create to start creating a storage pool. Select a unique name for the storage pool and the data protection level (RAID level). To select member drives, choose the Customization option. Otherwise, all available disk drives will be selected as member drives of this pool. The newly created storage pool will appear in the list of storage pools. 6

7 Step 2: Create Shared Volume After the storage pool has been created, a shared volume can be created. Go to Storage > Volume. Click on Create Volume. Select the pool in which you wish to create a volume and select a name for the volume. Select Deduplication to enable the data deduplication function. The volume will appear in the volume list. Step 3: Set Up Sharing Go to Explore and select the volume you just created. Select Share at the bottom of the screen. 7

8 In the settings window that appears, select a share name for the volume and a description, and configure the access rights. In the Share section at the bottom, select protocols. A shared volume for file sharing using the deduplication function has now been configured. 8

9 File Server Capacity Reduction with Deduplication The SNC NAS systems are designed to facilitate file sharing. In many business environments, however, significant amounts of duplicated data are present in shared folders, unnecessarily increasing storage utilization. By using the deduplication function on SNC NAS systems, file sharing can be achieved with a much lower capacity utilization ratio. An example can be used to reflect a typical office environment. The shared user volume in this example consists of regular MS Office documents, diagrams, tools and application programs. The details of the shared volume are presented in the table below. By comparing the size of the shared volume without deduplication and the size of the shared volume with deduplication, we can calculate the capacity reduction achieved with deduplication. In the long run, these capacity reductions can generate significant benefits in terms of storage costs. Shared Volume Details Volume Size w/o Volume Size with Capacity Deduplic. (GB) Deduplic. (GB) Reduction Number of Folders: 19,678 Number of Files: 195,896 File Type: Documents, diagrams, vdeo clips, app tools etc % Data Backup Capacity Reduction with Deduplication Backing up data can help users maintain data availability when original data volumes can no longer be accessed due to errors or malfunctions, or enable them to conduct data analysis or testing. The example below can highlight the impact deduplication can have in terms of reducing the capacity needed to store backup copies. In this example, the user creates full backup copies of database and data once a week into a shared volume of an SNC NAS system. 9

10 Data Volume Size after Volume Size after Capacity Volume Size after Backup Copy in Reduction Backup Copy in Backup Backup Week 2; with with Week 2; w/o Copy in Deduplic. (GB) Deduplic. Deduplic. (GB) Week 1 Database % PST % 21 Total % 53.8 As users often have fixed schedules for creating backups (e.g. one backup copy per week), the impact of deduplication will increase over time. Instead of storing ten different copies of roughly the same data over a 10-week period, by adopting deduplication users can ensure only minimal storage utilization increases when conducting the same backup schedule. VMDK Capacity Reduction with Deduplication Storage systems are often deployed in virtualized server environments with VMware. In VMware, VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk Format) images are used to document virtual machine environments, including their OS and other features. If users create a large number of virtual machines, storing the VMDK images of all these virtual machines may require a large amount of storage capacity. By using deduplication, the capacity required for these VMDK images can be significantly reduced, helping users minimize the capacity demands on storage systems in virtualized environments. 10

11 The following example shows a user storing six full-sized VMDK images in an SNC NAS volume, including three Windows OS and three Linux OS. By comparing the capacity used without and with deduplication, we find that deduplication can help this user save up to 62.6% in storage capacity. VMDK Provisioned Volume Size Volume Size Capacity (OS Type) Size (GB) w/o Deduplic. with Deduplic. (GB) (GB) Reduction Windows bit Windows 2003 SP2 32 bit Windows 2008 R2 64 bit % RHEL bit RHEL bit RHEL bit