A method comprising: receiving, from an application layer of a ZFS system and through a system call interface of an interface layer of the ZFS system, a first request to perform a transaction with respect to a file, wherein the file corresponds to data blocks and corresponding metadata that are stored separately as logical blocks according to a tree hierarchy; communicating the first request to a storage pool allocator in a pooled storage layer of the ZFS system; generating, by a cloud interface appliance of the ZFS system, an object interface request based at least in part on the first request; transmitting, by the cloud interface appliance and via an object protocol over one or more networks, the object interface request to a cloud object store, wherein the object interface request corresponds to a read operation with respect to at least one cloud storage object stored in the cloud object store, wherein the at least one cloud storage object corresponds to a first node according to the tree hierarchy; receiving, by the cloud interface appliance, a version of the at least one cloud storage object from the cloud object store; processing, by the storage pool allocator or the cloud interface appliance, the version of the at least one cloud storage object to generate a generated checksum; retrieving, by the storage pool allocator or the cloud interface appliance, metadata that is stored separately from the at least one cloud storage object and that corresponds to a second node according to the tree hierarchy that is a parent node with respect to the first node; identifying, by the storage pool allocator or the cloud interface appliance, from the metadata a reference checksum for the at least one cloud storage object, the reference checksum being associated with a last modified version of the cloud storage object; determining whether the generated checksum matches the reference checksum; and when the generated checksum is determined to match the reference checksum, generating a response to the first request based at least in part on the version of the at least one cloud storage object. receiving, from an application layer of a ZFS system and through a system call interface of an interface layer of the ZFS system, a first request to perform a transaction with respect to a file, wherein the file corresponds to data blocks and corresponding metadata that are stored separately as logical blocks according to a tree hierarchy; communicating the first request to a storage pool allocator in a pooled storage layer of the ZFS system; generating, by a cloud interface appliance of the ZFS system, an object interface request based at least in part on the first request; transmitting, by the cloud interface appliance and via an object protocol over one or more networks, the object interface request to a cloud object store, wherein the object interface request corresponds to a read operation with respect to at least one cloud storage object stored in the cloud object store, wherein the at least one cloud storage object corresponds to a first node according to the tree hierarchy; receiving, by the cloud interface appliance, a version of the at least one cloud storage object from the cloud object store; processing, by the storage pool allocator or the cloud interface appliance, the version of the at least one cloud storage object to generate a generated checksum; retrieving, by the storage pool allocator or the cloud interface appliance, metadata that is stored separately from the at least one cloud storage object and that corresponds to a second node according to the tree hierarchy that is a parent node with respect to the first node; identifying, by the storage pool allocator or the cloud interface appliance, from the metadata a reference checksum for the at least one cloud storage object, the reference checksum being associated with a last modified version of the cloud storage object; determining whether the generated checksum matches the reference checksum; and when the generated checksum is determined to match the reference checksum, generating a response to the first request based at least in part on the version of the at least one cloud storage object.