Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure (AZ-800) Practice

Which of the following workloads is most likely to yield the best disk space savings when using Data Deduplication?

1. User documents

2. Virtualization libraries

3. General file share

4. Backup files

The correct answer is: Virtualization libraries

Data Deduplication is a technology that is particularly effective in reducing storage needs by eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. Among the provided options, virtualization libraries typically contain files that are highly repetitive in nature, such as virtual machine disk files (VHD or VHDX) or snapshots associated with various virtual machines. When virtualization libraries are analyzed for data redundancy, there is a significant likelihood of encountering many identical or similar files, especially when multiple virtual machines are utilizing similar operating systems or applications. As these environments often reuse the same base images or data across many instances, Data Deduplication can identify these duplicates effectively, resulting in substantial disk space savings. In contrast, user documents may vary significantly in content, leading to less redundancy. General file shares may have some level of duplication but not typically at the scale seen in virtualization libraries. Backup files, while they can contain redundant data, often consist of incremental backups that are designed to retain different versions, which makes deduplication less effective compared to the repetitive nature of virtualization libraries. Therefore, virtualization libraries are the most likely workload to yield the best disk space savings when using Data Deduplication due to the high volume of repetitive data they commonly contain.