TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure is generally related to data storage management, and more particularly, to duplicating encrypted data that was previously deduplicated (e.g., merged, consolidated) to reduce storage space.

BACKGROUND

Modern computer systems perform data deduplication to improve the utilization of data storage resources. Data duplication is a technique that removes duplicate copies of repeating data to enable more data to be stored within a data storage device. The technique of data duplication may involve identifying unique chunks or byte patterns of data that are stored within a data storage resource. The unique chunks are compared to other chunks stored within the data storage resource and when a match occurs, redundant chunks are replaced with a small reference that points to one of the stored chunks. Given that the same chunk or byte pattern may occur dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times, the amount of data that should be stored or transferred can be greatly reduced. When subsequent requests are made to alter the chunk of data the chunk may be re-duplicated so that the alteration can be applied to the re-duplicated chunk.

