Patent ID: 8266106

Claim:
A method for managing the storage of electronic data, the method comprising: storing a first copy of files at a first storage location in a network storage device (“NAS device”), wherein the NAS device has an internal operating system and an internal file management system, and wherein the NAS device communicates with other devices via a network; tracking the first copy of the files stored in the NAS device with a data migrator, wherein the data migrator executes on one or more computer processors that are externally located from the NAS device, the data migrator also has a different file management system than the NAS device, the data migrator maintains an index cache in a location external to the NAS device, the index cache comprises information about the first storage location of the first copy of the files on the NAS device; processing at least one storage policy with the data migrator to determine when to copy the first copy of the files on the NAS device to one or more secondary storage devices; using the index cache maintained by the data migrator to identify that the first copy of the files is stored in the NAS device; migrating, with the data migrator, the first copy of the files stored in the NAS device to a secondary copy stored in the one or more secondary storage devices; and automatically replacing, with the data migrator, the first copy of the files stored in the NAS device with a stub that identifies the location of the secondary copy in the one or more secondary storage devices, wherein the data migrator externally directs the writing of the stub into the first storage location on the NAS device.