Patent ID: 8019730

Claim:
A method for updating an archive of a computer file, the method comprising: receiving an input selecting one of a first condition or a second condition to optimize archiving information stored on a client computer; selecting one of a plurality of comparison methods as a preferred comparison method between a file resident on the client computer and an archive of the file resident on a server computer based on the input selecting one of the first condition or the second condition, wherein the plurality of comparison methods comprise: comparing, in a first one of the plurality of comparison methods, individual bytes in the file resident on the client computer to corresponding individual bytes in a copy of the archive of the file, wherein the copy of the archive of the file resides on the client computer; and partitioning, in a second one of the plurality of comparison methods, the file into a plurality of blocks, computing a first set of tokens that statistically represent the file from a cyclic redundancy code value computed for each one of the plurality of blocks, and comparing each one of the first set of tokens to a respective one of a second set of tokens that statistically represent the archive of the file, wherein the second set of tokens resides on the client computer; and carrying out the preferred comparison method to generate one or more indicia of difference between the file resident on the client computer and the archive of the file resident on the server computer, wherein the carrying out the preferred comparison method includes conveying the one or more indicia of difference from the client computer to the server computer to update the archive of the file.