# Lack of Deduplication and Change Block Tracking in AWS Backup

Canonical: https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/inefficiencies/lack-of-deduplication-and-change-block-tracking-in-aws-backup

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# Lack of Deduplication and Change Block Tracking in AWS Backup

## Explanation

AWS Backup does not natively support global deduplication or change block tracking across backups. As a result, even traditional incremental or differential backup strategies (e.g., daily incremental, weekly full) can accumulate redundant data. Over time, this leads to higher-than-necessary storage usage and cost - especially in environments with frequent backup schedules or large data volumes that only change minimally between snapshots. While some third-party agents can implement CBT and deduplication at the client level, AWS Backup alone offers no built-in mechanism to avoid storing unchanged data across backup generations.

## Relevant Billing Model

Backups are billed per GB-month of backup storage. This includes both warm storage (primary backup copies) and cold storage (if lifecycle policies transition backups to cold tiers). Charges are accrued for each full or incremental backup, regardless of data change volume. Lack of deduplication or CBT at the platform level can inflate backup sizes and recurring costs.

## Detection

- Review high-frequency backup schedules (e.g., daily or hourly) across services like EBS, FSx, and RDS

- Analyze backup size growth relative to underlying data changes

- Identify environments using only AWS-native backup with no CBT or deduplication in place

- Check for repetitive full backups that duplicate mostly unchanged data

- Assess the use of cold storage lifecycle policies, which may mask inefficiencies but not resolve them

## Remediation

- Where supported, leverage third-party backup tools with CBT and deduplication (e.g., Commvault, Veeam, Druva)

- Reevaluate backup frequency and retention periods based on RPO/RTO requirements

- Consolidate redundant backup plans across environments and services

- Implement tighter backup scoping to exclude unchanged or non-critical volumes

- Monitor backup growth trends to detect inefficient accumulation of redundant data

## Relevant Documentation

[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-backup/latest/devguide/whatisbackup.html](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-backup/latest/devguide/whatisbackup.html) 
[https://aws.amazon.com/backup/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/backup/pricing/) 
[https://docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-backup/latest/devguide/whatisbackup.html\\#whatisbackup-how](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/aws-backup/latest/devguide/whatisbackup.html#whatisbackup-how)

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## At a glance

Reference

CER-0071

Cloud provider

AWS

Service

AWS Backup

Category

[Storage](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/service-category/storage)

Inefficiency type

Underutilization

## Contributed by

- Bhanu Kiran 

### Bhanu Kiran

Head of Cloud Strategy (Interim/Advisory) @ BluMotiv

[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhanukirankota/)

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Source: the public page above. Product screenshots and illustrative interfaces are examples, not live customer data.