A computer-implemented method of deleting records in a log-structured merge tree based storage system during a merge operation that writes data from a memory storage to an extent (130, 240), comprising: receiving a command to delete a plurality of records; inserting a range tombstone into the memory storage component of the storage system, the range tombstone indicating the plurality of records to be deleted; selecting a delayed deletion process based at least in part on whether the plurality of records is contiguous beyond a predetermined threshold amount; modifying a manifest of the storage system based on the selected delayed deletion process; and performing the merge operation, wherein the plurality of records is not written to the extent (130, 240) during the flush operation based at least in part on the delayed deletion process, wherein, when the plurality of records is contiguous, the delayed deletion process is a key range slicing process, the key range slicing process comprising: updating the manifest of the storage system to remove a key range corresponding to the plurality of records from the manifest, and wherein when the plurality of records is not contiguous, the delayed deletion process is a deferred deletion process, the deferred deletion process comprising: annotating the manifest of the storage system with data that indicates an object that is deleted from the storage system and a time that the object was deleted from the storage system, wherein the annotation does not modify extent references in the storage system. receiving a command to delete a plurality of records; inserting a range tombstone into the memory storage component of the storage system, the range tombstone indicating the plurality of records to be deleted; selecting a delayed deletion process based at least in part on whether the plurality of records is contiguous beyond a predetermined threshold amount; modifying a manifest of the storage system based on the selected delayed deletion process; and performing the merge operation, wherein the plurality of records is not written to the extent (130, 240) during the flush operation based at least in part on the delayed deletion process, wherein, when the plurality of records is contiguous, the delayed deletion process is a key range slicing process, the key range slicing process comprising: updating the manifest of the storage system to remove a key range corresponding to the plurality of records from the manifest, and wherein when the plurality of records is not contiguous, the delayed deletion process is a deferred deletion process, the deferred deletion process comprising: annotating the manifest of the storage system with data that indicates an object that is deleted from the storage system and a time that the object was deleted from the storage system, wherein the annotation does not modify extent references in the storage system. updating the manifest of the storage system to remove a key range corresponding to the plurality of records from the manifest, and wherein when the plurality of records is not contiguous, the delayed deletion process is a deferred deletion process, the deferred deletion process comprising: annotating the manifest of the storage system with data that indicates an object that is deleted from the storage system and a time that the object was deleted from the storage system, wherein the annotation does not modify extent references in the storage system. annotating the manifest of the storage system with data that indicates an object that is deleted from the storage system and a time that the object was deleted from the storage system, wherein the annotation does not modify extent references in the storage system.