Patent ID: 8346730

Claim:
A storage system for deduplicating blocks of data based on a predetermined threshold number (THN) of sequential blocks, the storage system comprising: a processor; a set of one or more disk devices for storing a plurality of blocks, each disk device comprising a set of tracks for storing blocks; and a deduplication layer configured for performing deduplication processing on received blocks by: receiving a set of blocks; determining whether the set of received blocks comprises THN or more blocks; upon determining that the set of received blocks does not comprise THN or more blocks, stopping deduplication processing on the set of received blocks; upon determining that the set of received blocks comprises THN or more blocks, determining whether a series of THN or more received blocks (THN series) matches, in data content, a sequence of THN or more blocks stored on a disk device (THN sequence), a THN sequence comprising THN or more consecutive blocks stored on a same track of a disk device, THN having a value of 2 or greater; and upon determining that a matching THN sequence is found, deduplicating the blocks of the THN series using the matching THN sequence.