Patent ID: 8650157

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for deduplicating data transported via physical storage media, at least a portion of the method being performed by a computing device comprising at least one processor, the method comprising: identifying data stored on a storage device at a first physical location that is to be: transferred to a physical storage medium that is external to the storage device at the first physical location; and physically transported from the first physical location to a second physical location via the physical storage medium; identifying a deduplication agent preloaded onto the physical storage medium by a storage vendor; deduplicating the identified data using the deduplication agent preloaded onto the physical storage medium by the storage vendor, wherein deduplicating the identified data comprises: determining that an instance of at least one data segment within the identified data is stored on a storage device at the second physical location that is external to the physical storage medium; creating, on the physical storage medium that is physically transported from the first location to the second location, a reference to the instance of the data segment that is stored on the storage device at the second physical location as opposed to storing the data segment on the physical storage medium; storing the deduplicated data on the physical storage medium; after the physical storage medium has been physically transported from the first physical location to the second physical location via the physical storage medium, transferring the deduplicated data from the physical storage medium to the storage device at the second physical location.