Patent ID: 8600948

Claim:
A method for avoiding duplicative storage of content, comprising: determining whether content associated with an object has been stored previously in a physical storage location with which the object is associated, the physical storage location being one of a plurality of physical storage locations each with a retention period; in the event it is determined that the content has been stored previously in the physical storage location: associating the previously-stored content with the object; and storing the object, but not a duplicate copy of the content, in the physical storage location; in the event it is determined that the content has not been stored previously in the physical storage location, storing the object and the content in the physical storage location, even if a copy of the content is stored already in another of the plurality of physical storage locations; and upon receiving a retention notification that the retention period for the physical storage location has expired, using a low level command to bulk erase the entire contents including all objects and all content from the physical storage location without regard to its logical contents.