5 1 0:Si3 Deduplication Hardware Requirements

From SEPsesam


Welcome to the latest SEP sesam documentation version 5.1.0 Apollon. For previous documentation version(s), check documentation archive.


Overview


  • For the minimum Si3/Si3-NG hardware requirements that apply to the SEP sesam Si3/Si3-NG deduplication server, see Hardware Requirements.
  • For details on the required Java version, see Java Compatibility Matrix. Si3/Si3-NG is not mandatory, so there is no dependency rule for it in the RPM/DEB packages.
  • When estimating the maximum size of a deduplication store, you have to ensure that there is enough space available for dedup trash, otherwise the deduplication store will run out of space. You should calculate the required disk space based on a representative sample of your full backup and add the additional storage space equal to approximately 50% of the representative full backup.

Disk attachment and protocols

Si3/Si3-NG supports all types of direct-attached disk storage, such as serial attached SCSI (SAS), Serial ATA (SATA), and Fibre Channel (FC)/LUN.

Performance tip

Applies to Windows only: SEP AG recommends using the High performance power plan to increase the performance of your backup. Note that Windows sets all computers to the Balanced power plan by default and you must manually switch to the High Performance power plan. This way, your Windows computer will use more power, but the systems with Si3 will always operate at the highest performance level.

  • From the Start menu, go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> Power Options and change the setting to High performance.

Restrictions

  • Si3 NG deduplication store is not supported for NSS and MooseFS volumes.
  • To avoid problems resulting from the combination of excessively large Si3 deduplication stores and inefficient hardware, the maximum initial Si3/Si3-NG deduplication store size is limited to 40 TB. If you would need to increase this limit, contact SEP support.
  • This limitation applies to the creation of a new Si3/Si3-NG deduplication store in the GUI.
Note
It is recommended to run Si3 deduplication (SEP sesam Server or RDS) on the physical host. It is also possible to run it on a virtual machine. In this case, take into account that deduplication consumes a lot of server resources for reading, processing and writing the deduplicated data, as well as for some other deduplication tasks such as housekeeping and various checks. These tasks require a large amount of IO and a large amount of memory. Si3 performance can be affected by other virtual machines running on the same host. Therefore, if you are running Si3 on a VM, you should be aware of possible bottlenecks and shortcomings.

Required additional amount of RAM and CPU cores

Memory requirements are dependent on the number of concurrent streams and expected workload. The following tables show the recommended minimum additional amount of RAM and CPU cores for a Si3/Si3-NG data store to ensure good performance. The TB value corresponds to the capacity of the Si3/Si3-NG data store.

Note
These requirements relate solely to the need for deduplication. In addition, you should consider the amount of memory for the operating system and other services.
Si3/Si3-NG data store capacity (check initial size limit) RAM
<20 TB at least 16 GiB
20-40 TB at least 32 GiB

The following table shows the number of CPU cores required for a Si3/Si3-NG data store. The TB value is the amount of data backed up (before deduplication)!

Backed up data (before dedup) CPU cores Note
10 TB 4
20 TB 4
40 TB 8
Note

This is the minimum amount to ensure good performance. Depending on the number of concurrent streams, more cores may be needed.


See also

DeduplicationConfiguring Si3 NG Deduplication StoreSi3 Deduplication TroubleshootingSEP sesam RequirementsLicensingSEP Tachometer (only for Si3)

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