Patent ID: 8595189

Claim:
A method for fast incremental replication of a file system, comprising: at a data storage level, tracking a file system status for a plurality of files by using a data structure inside respective inodes for the plurality of files; at a file system level, tracking a file system status for a plurality of files by using a file system mask structure; for all files present in a backup, maintaining a catalogue of a file path name and inode number on a source file system; during incremental backup, consulting a source file system data structure enumerating a plurality of modified inodes to determine inodes that have been marked as removed or created; for inodes that have not been marked as removed or created, consulting the file system mask structure that tracks modified portions to obtain a file incremental change and inodes that have been modified and appended, the file incremental change indicating a difference between a stored file size and a subsequent file size; and performing incremental backup using the inodes that have been modified and appended.