摘要 |
A file folding technique reduces the number of duplicate data blocks of a file consumed on a storage device of a file server configured to generate a persistent image of its active file system at a point in time. According to the file folding technique, if "old" data blocks of the file are over-written with "new" data and that new data is identical to the data of the persistent file image, the old data blocks are "freed" and the file is directed to refer to the persistent image for its data. The invention reduces disk space consumption in a file server configured to generate persistent images of its active file system and, in particular, reduces overall persistent image disk usage.
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