A plurality of workers is configured for parallel processing of deduplicated data entities in a plurality of chunks. The deduplicated data processing rate is regulated using a rate control mechanism. The rate control mechanism incorporates a debt/credit algorithm specifying which of the plurality of workers processing the deduplicated data entities must wait for each of a plurality of calculated required sleep times, the calculated required sleep times being calculated as a best fit between a maximum allowable sleep time, a delta vector, and a limit per time vector, wherein the required sleep time is one of the plurality of calculated required sleep times.