Patent ID: 7865475

Claim:
A method comprising: converting an existing mirror relationship between an original dataset stored at a source storage system and a mirror of the original dataset stored at a destination storage system to a new mirror relationship, a dataset including one or more data containers, the existing mirror relationship converted by: transferring, from a source conversion module on the source storage system, a first plurality of data container attributes contained on the source storage system's active file system in a directory structure, each attribute within the first plurality of data container attributes associated with a data container's properties, the first plurality data container attributes transferred to the destination storage system rather than the files themselves; receiving the first plurality of data container attributes at a destination conversion module on the destination storage system; comparing, by the destination conversion module on the destination storage system, the first plurality of data container attributes received in the directory structure to the attributes on the destination storage system's active file system to find common data container attributes contained on both the source storage system and the destination storage system; for each matching attribute found in both the first plurality of data container attributes and the second plurality of data container attributes, creating a mapping of an associated inode number on the source storage system to an associated inode number on the destination storage system of each data container associated with the matched attribute; and establishing a new mirror relationship using the mapping without discarding the mirror and without transferring data from the source storage system to create a new mirror to replace the existing mirror at the destination storage system.