Data Deduplication with Edit Errors

In this paper we tackle the problem of file deduplication for efficient data storage. We consider the case where the deduplication is performed on files that are modified by edit errors relative to the original version. We propose a novel block-level deduplication algorithm with variable-lengths in the case of non-binary alphabets. Compared to hash-based deduplication algorithms where file deduplication depends on the content of the hash keys or to brute force methods that compare files symbol-by- symbol, our algorithm significantly reduces the number of symbol comparisons and achieves high deduplication ratios. We present a theoretical analysis on the cost of the algorithm compared to naive methods and experimental results to evaluate the efficiency of our deduplication algorithm.