Methods and apparatus for conversion of content

In one embodiment of the invention, a utility may be installed (e.g., by a system administrator) on a storage system. The utility may read content units on the storage system that are stored in one data format, and convert the content units to a second data format. In one embodiment, in response to a read request for a content unit, a data format in which to return the content unit may be selected and the content unit may be returned in that data format. In another embodiment, mapping information may be created that specifies in which data format a content unit should be returned in response to a request for the content unit. The mapping information may be stored either on the storage system that stores the content unit, the computer requesting access to the content unit, or any other computer or device in the computer system.