Patent ID: 9367397
Filing Date: 2016-06-14
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A method, comprising: receiving an indication that a data object is to be deleted, wherein the data object comprises data stored in a segment within a container; determining no currently alive data object references any segment within the container, wherein an alive data object refers to a data object being actively used or stored by one or more of the following: a user, a system, and an administrator; placing the container in a delete-ready state, wherein a delete-ready state is a state indicating the container is ready for deletion but not yet reclaimable; recording metadata reflecting a temporal order in which the container was placed in the delete-ready state relative to one or more other containers being placed in the delete-ready state; retaining in a segment index, at least for as long as the container remains in the delete-ready state, a segment index data associated with the container; receiving an indication that a trigger event to reclaim storage space has occurred; and changing the container from the delete-ready state to a deleted state in which storage space associated with the container is subject to being reclaimed based at least in part on the indication that the trigger event has occurred and said metadata reflecting the temporal order in which the container was place in the delete-ready state.