I heard that Windows 11 Server has a deduplication component, and I'm curious if there's a way to extract this feature and install it on Windows 11 Pro. I've seen some Russian articles discussing this and mentioning tools like SXSv1, but I can't seem to find any information. I want to avoid ReFS since I prefer to use NTFS for this. I have an unusual Windows setup and I'm looking to maximize its potential. If I'm in the wrong community for this, I'd appreciate other community recommendations!
2 Answers
Just a heads up, there isn’t a version called 'Windows 11 Server.' However, features like deduplication are available in recent Windows Server editions. It could theoretically be possible to extract it, but expect it to be quite challenging and likely to cause issues with future updates. What are your main goals? If you're okay with hardware-based deduplication, solutions like SAN or Veeam might be worth looking into instead.
You might want to check if you're in the right place for such advanced stuff. While I’m not sure about the best community for your question, it seems pretty specific for this one.
I'm mainly looking for software deduplication, and I want something that works at the block level. I've already been experimenting with jdupes for file-level deduplication. I know it's risky but I'm comfortable trying things out with my fresh install since I have backups ready. I plan on working with Hyper-V and local Python environments, which tend to take up a lot of space. By the way, it’s actually Windows Server 2025 that I'm referring to, not 11.