A system for matching data using flow based packet data storage includes a communications interface and a processor. A communications interface receives a packet between a source and a destination. The processor identifies a flow between the source and the destination based on the packet. The processor determines whether some of packet data of the packet indicates a potential match to data in storage using hashes. The processor then stores the data from the most likely data match and second most likely data match without a packet header in a block of memory in the storage based on the flow.