Patent ID: 7506005

Claim:
A computing device having a storage volume, a file system managing the storage volume, and a file stored on the storage volume by the file system and accessed through such file system, the file being defined to include data and metadata relating to the data, at least a portion of the data of the file being removed from the file and stored at an alternate location such that the data does not occupy substantially any space on the volume and the file is in a reduced, ghosted form, the metadata of the ghosted file as resident on the volume including substantially all the metadata from the file prior to ghosting and also containing ghosting information for being employed to retrieve the data for the file from the alternate location, the ghosted file being reconstituted for use by retrieving the data from the alternate location and associating such retrieved data with such ghosted file to form the reconstituted file, wherein the computing device is a branch server and the alternate location is a hub server remote from the branch server, the hub server servicing a plurality of such branch servers.