De-Duplication Optimized Platform for Object Grouping

Embodiments are provided for enhancing storage efficiency in a de-duplication enabled storage system. Using one or more de-duplication metadata repositories local to respective nodes of a storage system, objects are pre-processed in each node. The pre-processing includes deriving a coreness of each object, and grouping the objects into respective cores based on coreness. Each object of a core has at least a minimum coreness. In response to receiving an object request from a target node, the request is iteratively assessed by locating a first core comprising the requested object, calculating a size of the located first core, and identifying a transfer group based on the extracted size. The transfer group is transferred to the target node.