SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR STORING REDUNDANT INFORMATION

摘要

A method and system for reducing storage requirements and speeding up storage operations by reducing the storage of redundant data includes receiving a request that identifies one or more data objects to which to apply a storage operation. For each data object, the storage system determines if the data object contains data that matches another data object to which the storage operation was previously applied. If the data objects do not match, then the storage system performs the storage operation in a usual manner. However, if the data objects do match, then the storage system may avoid performing the storage operation.

主权项

1. A method performed by a computer system of storing a single-instance copy on a sequential storage medium such as magnetic tape, wherein the single instance copy is created from copies of original data objects, the method comprising:
receiving or accessing multiple data objects from a computer network,
wherein some of the multiple data objects are substantially identical; storing, on a random-access storage medium, a single-instance copy of the multiple data objects,
wherein the single-instance copy contains a copy of one of the substantially identical data objects and not copies of the remaining substantially identical data objects, andwherein the random-access storage medium includes at least one reference to the copy of one of the substantially identical data objects; and providing for storage, on a sequential storage medium, the copy of one of the substantially identical data objects, and the at least one reference to the copy of the substantially identical data objects, in that order.