Patent ID: 7373520

Claim:
A method of computing object signatures comprising: in response to detecting a low load of a file system: identifying a first data object of a plurality of data objects within a file system; partitioning said first data object into a plurality of partitions; generating and storing transient signature values corresponding to one or more of said plurality of partitions; identifying a given data object in the file system having a first transient signature value, wherein said first transient signature value corresponds to a first partition of said given data object; and utilizing said first transient signature value as a seed in generating a second transient signature value corresponding to at least a second partition of said given data object; in response to detecting a write access corresponding to a second data object within the file system: identifying one or more cached transient signature values corresponding to said second data object, wherein each of said one or more cached transient signature values correspond to a different partition of said second data object; and invalidating those transient signature values of said one or more cached transient signature values which correspond to a partition of said second data object to which said write access is addressed and those partitions of said second data object that follow.