US Patent 9773118 Data deduplication with encryption

Approaches for deduplicating data include generating a first key from plain text data of a first data element. The first data element is encrypted using the first key. The first key is compared to each key of a plurality of previously stored keys, which are associated with other encrypted data elements. In response to the first key matching a second key of the plurality of previously stored keys, the encrypted first data element is compared to the other encrypted data element associated with the second key. In response to the encrypted first data element matching the other encrypted data element, the first key is associated with the other encrypted data element, and the encrypted first data element is discarded.