I would say yes in most cases. v5 (technically v4 Gen2) introduced the following features:

• DDB reconstruction re-startability
• Concurrent reconstruction for multiple DDB partitions (optional)
• Growth management
• Faster full and synthetic full backups
• Garbage collection (optional)
• Faster reconstruction (optional)
• Memory increase
• NVMe SSD optimization

The only scenario I can think of that I would not recommend it would be older MAs that are already performance bound or not using NVMe or SSDs or are currently tight on space or are experiencing high Q&I times for their DDB drives as v5 does introduce the ability to spawn new DDBs in the event the existing ones are over burdened and thus would potentially require additional space/usage.

Below is a video with a deep dive of the changes between the two if you are interested.

Tech Talks - On-Demand Learning Library - Confluence (atlassian.net)

@J Dodson  Thank you! Exactly what I needed.

Melissa

Hello,

 

About NVMe SSD optimization, I can see on documentation the following informations:

The new deduplication generation introduces a built-in optimization for deduplication databases hosted on NVMe SSD storage technology. If the NVMe card is not detected properly, it can be set manually. When NVMe is used, the number of threads used is increased from two (2) to eight (8).

 

How can we checked Commvault detect the NVMe card?

 

Kind regards,

 

Jeremy

Good question! We ran all our MAs virtualized and use NVMe based arrays. So there is a big chance that in our case this is not detected. So which report of console gives access to this information so we can determine if we need to set it manually. As for DDB migration to the latest version, why is this still a manual process? Why can't Commvault just upgrade the DDBs automatically to the latest version or adopt the UI as such that it displays a recommendation stating that the specific DDBs are eligible for an upgrade to the latest version.

I was searching for it in the documentation but couldn't find anything related but Google turned out to be my friend → https://commvaultondemand.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ODLL/pages/358580314/Deduplication+V4+Gen+2+V5

@Mike Struening can you shine some light on this where you can locate if Commvault is running in optimized mode and how to enable it manually?

NVMe SSD Optimization

The new deduplication generation introduces a built-in optimization for deduplication databases hosted on NVMe SSD storage technology. If the NVMe card is not detected properly, it can be set manually. When NVMe is used, the number of threads used is increased from two (2) to eight (8).

I’m on it, @Onno van den Berg !

@Onno van den Berg , I spoke to one of the co-authors of the doc you linked who was very helpful:

The auto detection didn’t work every time, so the enhanced behaviours just became default.

Regardless of what disk the DDB is sitting on your should now see this in the SIDBEngine.log:

 

236   1a3c  11/03 21:27:49 ### 1-1-2-1 LoadConfig        360  Max Threads Â16], Backup Threads 8], Pruning Threads P8]

….

236   1a3c  11/03 21:27:49 ### 1-1-2-1 InitShared         93  DB files are on an SSD disk.

 

Let me know if this answers your question.

Hi @Mike Struening ,

Thank you for your return !

I just checked on my configuration, setting max threads is equal to 8], on your screen is equal to 16], what do you think? Optimization is it correctly applied?

 

12308 2b38  11/17 07:12:44 ### 35-0-35-0 InitShared         93  DB files are on an SSD disk.

17068 2f0   11/17 09:02:17 ### 35-0-35-0 LoadConfig        322  Setting max threads to 8
17068 2f0   11/17 09:02:17 ### 35-0-35-0 LoadConfig        326  Setting max backup threads to Â4]
17068 2f0   11/17 09:02:17 ### 35-0-35-0 LoadConfig        330  Setting max pruning threads to Â4]

 

Thank you for your support, I really appreciate,

 

Kind regards,

 

Jeremy

@Jeremy.D it might be that it was enabled by default as of a specific version, so can you elaborate on the Commvault version that you are running in the MA? I will need to check out tomorrow. 

@Onno van den Berg, for the client we have converted the DDB, setting max threads is equal to [8],  we are in 11.24.73 version.

I have another client with 11.28 versions, the DDB is a fresh install on a NVMe disk and the setting max threads is equal to 16].

So I don’t know if it’s due to the conversion or the Commvault versions.

Thanks