Patent ID: 8108634

Claim:
A method to replicate data comprising: determining if an I/O data block from a journal is generated by a replication initialization process; if the I/O data block from the journal is generated by the replication initialization process, determining if the I/O data block from the journal comprises zero data; if the I/O data block from the journal comprises the zero data, reading a corresponding I/O data block in a volume; determining if the corresponding I/O data block from the volume comprises zero data; and if the corresponding I/O data block from the volume comprises zero data, bypassing writing the I/O data block from the journal to the corresponding I/O data block in the volume, wherein determining if an I/O data block from a journal is generated by a replication initialization process comprises reading metadata associated with the I/O data block to determine the source of the I/O data block.