Patent ID: 8375183

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a request to archive one or more backup images, wherein the one or more backup images are selected from a plurality of backup images, and the plurality of backup images are maintained by a backup appliance; retrieving the one or more backup images from the backup appliance, wherein the backup appliance is configured to perform de-duplication of data of the plurality of backup images, the backup appliance maintains common data of the plurality of backup images as a pool of de-duplicated data, the retrieving comprises identifying unique data and common data of the one or more backup images by comparing data of the one or more backup images with the pool of de-duplicated data, and retrieving the unique data and the common data of the one or more backup images; and archiving the data of the one or more backup images, wherein the archiving comprises identifying new common data of the one or more backup images, wherein the new common data comprises at least a subset of the common data of the one or more backup images that has not been previously stored in an archival system, and the identifying comprises comparing the common data of the one or more backup images with common data previously stored in the archival system, storing the new common data in the archival system, and storing the unique data in the archival system.