Patent ID: 8037262

Claim:
A system comprising: a physical volume; a structure including at least one table to provide a mapping to a location of a data segment of the physical volume, the at least one table indicating a set of updates of the physical volume during a time period; a logical volume management module to define a logical volume as an arrangement of the physical volume; a snapshot module to automatically generate a point-in-time image of the logical volume and to prompt the logical volume management module to create a first table and a second table and to insert the first table and the second table into the structure, the first table to provide a set of updates associated with at least one of a read operation and a write operation to the logical volume, the second table to provide a set of updates to the point-in-time image, and the structure thereby to provide a set of common mappings of the point-in-time image and the logical volume; and a hierarchical structure module: to organize tables within the structure hierarchically according to a length in time since creation, the tables including the at least one table, the first table, and the second table, wherein the first table and the second table rank highest, and to reorganize the tables structure hierarchically, based on a removal of at least one of the first table and the second table.