De-duplication is a marvellous technology that greatly drops the cost of data backup down as it rids backup data of redundant, useless impertinent information. Up to a 50 to 1 storage size reduction rate can be achieved by the most recent virtual tape libraries. De-duplication suppliers, such as Diligent Technologies, Sepaton, FalconStor Software Inc., Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp), Quantum, Symantec Corp. and NEC, have chipped in well to the effort to lower storage costs in the world of data backup. There are a couple of negative points to the de-duplication idea. Power efficiency is a problem as users have had to revert to tape backup storage due to high consumption levels of energy associated with the de-duplication process. Also, the question remains if de-duplication will work properly together with encryption and compression technologies in the first place.
