Virtualization of consumer storage

Consumer devices containing digital storage are increasingly connected to networks in or outside of the home (e.g. mobile phones, set top boxes (STBs) and network attached storage (NAS)). As consumer devices using digital storage are increasingly networked it becomes possible to discover and manage content on these devices. Increased network connectivity allows "global" storage management of user generated as well as commercial content by consumers. This management will allow efficient backup and recovery of data as well as deduplication to speed backup and conserve digital storage space. If combined with automated metadata generation tools, the resulting indexing information will also allow more effective identification and use of consumer content. A form of virtualization of storage volumes in the home would be possible resulting in a consumer storage "cloud" that would effectively manage this content and could also be affiliated with non-consumer and non-local storage "clouds" for even broader content access and use.