Patent ID: 8612488

Claim:
A method for updating inodes in a file system comprising: tracking shared extents within the file system, wherein the tracking comprises creating a new record in a data structure, in response to two or more files sharing an extent, wherein the new record comprises mapping information for the extent, the extent is one of the shared extents within the file system, the extent is stored at a first memory location of a memory device managed by the file system, a first file of the two or more files is associated with a first inode, and a second file of the two or more files is associated with a second inode; determining whether the extent has been relocated based on information in the new record; in response to the determining, wherein the determining indicates that the extent has not been relocated relocating the extent, and updating the information to indicate that the extent has been relocated; updating the first inode to reference a second extent at a new memory location of the memory device, wherein the updating the first inode is in response to contents of the extent being relocated to the new memory location; and updating the second inode to reference the second extent at the new memory location, wherein the updating the first and second inodes depends on the new record.