How Data Deduplication Works

Data deduplication is a technology that eliminates duplicate copies of the same data, thereby reducing storage space. In an organization, there could be various reasons for duplicate data such as a specific email attachment forwarded to multiple users. When you back up this data, you end up saving multiple copies of the same data on the backup storage media.

Data deduplication eliminates redundant data and saves only one instance of the data. All other instances are replaced with a reference to that instance. This method can considerably reduce the storage space that is required to store backup data.

For example, there could be a same 10 MB file that 100 users have stored in their local systems. When you back up all these local systems or source, you would need 1000 MB of storage space. With Data Deduplication, you can reduce the storage space to approximately 10 MB because only one instance of the file is stored on the disk. The remaining 99 instances refer to that one instance.

Benefits of Data Deduplication