SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR STORING REDUNDANT INFORMATION
First Claim
1. A method in a computer system for storing a data object to sequential media, comprising:
- receiving a request to store in a destination location a copy of a data object, wherein the data object is stored at a source location on random access media and the destination location is on sequential media;
determining if a copy of the data object is already stored in a location associated with the sequential media; and
if the data object is already stored in a location associated with the sequential media, storing a reference to the data object in the destination location, and not storing at least a portion of the data object at the destination location.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system for reducing storage requirements and speeding up storage operations by reducing the storage of redundant data includes receiving a request that identifies one or more data objects to which to apply a storage operation. For each data object, the storage system determines if the data object contains data that matches another data object to which the storage operation was previously applied. If the data objects do not match, then the storage system performs the storage operation in a usual manner. However, if the data objects do match, then the storage system may avoid performing the storage operation.
-
Citations
21 Claims
-
1. A method in a computer system for storing a data object to sequential media, comprising:
-
receiving a request to store in a destination location a copy of a data object, wherein the data object is stored at a source location on random access media and the destination location is on sequential media; determining if a copy of the data object is already stored in a location associated with the sequential media; and if the data object is already stored in a location associated with the sequential media, storing a reference to the data object in the destination location, and not storing at least a portion of the data object at the destination location. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
-
-
9. A system for reducing redundant copies of files in a storage environment having sequential media, the system comprising:
-
a storage operation request component configured to receive requests to perform storage operations; a digest generation component configured to compute a digest that provides summary of a file that distinguishes it from other files referred to by storage operation requests; a digest comparison component configured to compare computed digests with previously stored digests to determine if a copy of a file already exists; and a single instance data store configured to store computed digests and files on sequential media such that only one instance of the same file is stored in a set of sequential media that contains multiple references to the same file. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13)
-
-
14. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for controlling a computer system to recover data, by a method comprising:
-
retrieving a backup object identifying a data object; determining whether the backup object contains a reference to the data object or contains the data object instelf; if the backup object refers to the data object stored in a location outside of the backup object, then locating the data object at the location outside of the backup object and copying the data object to a recovery location; and if the backup object contains the data object, copying the data object from the backup object to the recovery location, wherein a first instance of each data object is stored as a first backup object and each additional instance is stored as a reference to the first backup object. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
-
-
18. A system for storing data, comprising:
-
means for receiving a request to store on a destination sequential storage device a copy of a file stored on a source non-sequential data storage device; means for determining if a copy of the file is already stored on the destination sequential storage device; and means for storing a reference to the file on the destination sequential storage device if the file is already stored on the destination sequential storage device. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
-
-
21-80. -80. (canceled)
Specification