The downside to most of these NAS implementations is that efficiencies are gained only on a platform-by-platform basis. If your customer has a mixed NAS environment, you may want to look at an external solution that can work across different systems. Today, Ocarina Networks and Cofio Software have products in this space. Both companies' products can identify redundant segments of data and store only one copy of that segment. Both also have the capability to move data from primary storage to secondary storage and maintain the deduplication efficiency.

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