Enable Deduplication in Server 2012

Windows Server 2012 brings a useful new feature for your file servers to give you more efficiency in your file servers. This feature can be installed from the Roles and Feature wizard on any Server 2012 or 2012 R2 operating system.

Microsoft provide a deduplication evaluation tool as part of Server 2012 so you can get an idea of the storage savings you could see on your system. This tool is called DDPEval.exe and can be found in the C:\Windows\System32 folder of your server. This can be run against an entire drive or a specific folder.

C:\Windows\System32\DDPEval.exe Drive or path

Install Deduplication Role

Install through Server Manager:

1. Click the Add Roles and Features link to launch the wizard
2. Select the File and Storage Services Role
3. Select Data Deduplication
4. Continue the wizard to Install the role

The powershell commands to install Deduplication are:

Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature -name FS-Data-Deduplication
Import-Module Deduplication

Enable Deduplication of Volume

Now that you have installed the Deduplication feature you need to enable Deduplication on a Volume (as long as it is not a Boot or System volume)

1. Launch Server Manager
2. Select File and Storage Services and Select Volumes
3. Right Click on the Volume you want and click Configure Data Deduplication.
4. Click the checkbox to Enable Deduplication, you can then configure the deduplication. The Default value is to deduplicate files older than 5 days

Note: You can select 0 days in the value above to enable all files to be processed for deduplication regardless of age.

Powershell Method:

1. Launch Powershell as Administrator (Right Click and select Run As Administrator)
2. Type Enable-DedupVolume Volume:

Force Deduplication of Volume:

Set-DedupJob Volume -Type Optimization

This will initiate a deduplication of the storage volume. You can view the progress of all deduplication jobs with:

Get-DedupJob