Methods and apparatuses for performing selective deduplication in a storage system are introduced herein. Techniques are provided for determining a first deduplication priority for a first data object based upon a first projected likelihood that deduplication of the first data object will provide a storage space benefit to reduce storage consumption of a storage device. Inline deduplication is performed for the first data object based upon the first deduplication priority exceeding a deduplication probability threshold that is indicative of inline deduplication of the first data object having a threshold likelihood of achieving the storage space benefit from inline deduplication.