Patent ID: 7165160

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a processor; a memory controller coupled to the processor; a working memory, the working memory comprising a free extent memory pool, the free extent memory pool indicating the availability or unavailability of each memory extent; and a physical memory coupled to the memory controller, the physical memory divided into memory extents and including: a first region for use by the processor in executing instructions, and a second region not for use by the processor, wherein the memory controller causes the first region to be copied to the second region as the computer system operates to thereby provide a copy of the first region in the second region; wherein the memory controller, at a first selected time, further causes a copy of the second region to be made to a third region of the physical memory to thereby provide a snapshot of the first region at that selected time; and wherein the status of the regions may be selected from the group consisting of original, mirrored, ongoing, and snapshot.