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Guidelines for using ODX

Before you can use ODX for copy offload, you need to be aware of the guidelines. For example, you need to know on which types of volumes you can use ODX and you need to understand the intra-cluster and inter-cluster ODX considerations.

Volume guidelines​

  • You cannot use ODX for copy offload with the following volume configurations:

    • Source volume size is less than 1.25 GB

      The volume size must be 1.25 GB or larger to use ODX.

    • Read-only volumes

      ODX is not used for files and folders residing in load-sharing mirrors or in SnapMirror or SnapVault destination volumes.

    • If the source volume is not deduplicated

  • ODX copies are supported only for intra-cluster copies.

    You cannot use ODX to copy files or folders to a volume in another cluster.

Other guidelines​

  • In SMB environments, to use ODX for copy offload, the files must be 256 kb or larger.

    Smaller files are transferred using a traditional copy operation.

  • ODX copy offload uses deduplication as part of the copy process.

    If you do not want deduplication to occur on SVM volumes when copying or moving data, you should disable ODX copy offload on that SVM.

  • The application that performs the data transfer must be written to support ODX.

    Application operations that support ODX include the following:

    • Hyper-V management operations, such as creating and converting virtual hard disks (VHDs), managing Snapshot copies, and copying files between virtual machines

    • Windows Explorer operations

    • Windows PowerShell copy commands

    • Windows command prompt copy commands

      Robocopy at the Windows command prompt supports ODX.

      Note
      The applications must be running on Windows servers or clients that support ODX.

      For more information about supported ODX applications on Windows servers and clients, consult the Microsoft TechNet Library.