Patent ID: 8046509

Claim:
An apparatus for storing data with a removable medium, the apparatus comprising: a chunk module configured to receive an original data stream and break the original data stream into chunks; a hash module coupled to the chunk module and configured to calculate an identifier for each chunk and to store the identifiers; and a search module coupled to the removable medium, wherein the search module is configured to: determine, based on the identifiers, whether each chunk is unique, and store on the removable medium, at least two of a following: a stream of the unique chunks, a stream of descriptors describing each of the unique chunks, or a stream of references indicating a sequence of the unique chunks usable to reconstruct the original data stream, wherein the removable medium comprises a drive cartridge and the at least two streams of the unique chunks, the descriptors or the references are each stored in a separate region of memory in the drive cartridge.