Patent ID: 8352422

Claim:
A method for restoring data in a continuous data replication system, the method comprising: receiving, at a first point in time and with a first computing device, a request to restore data of one or more snapshots of replication data of a destination storage device, the snapshots representing point in time copies of the replication data taken at points in time earlier than the first point in time, the replication data having a plurality of first stub files replicated from a source system and a plurality of second stub files that were not replicated from the source system and are instead indicative of select data blocks that were replicated from the source system to the destination storage device and were then later migrated to a secondary storage device from the destination storage device, wherein the second stub files include metadata that is used to locate the corresponding migrated select data blocks in the secondary storage device; mounting the one or more snapshots, at least some of the one or more snapshots comprising one or more of the first stub files, one or more of the second stub files, and one or more non-stub file data blocks; identifying the second stub files captured by the one or more snapshots; using the metadata of the identified second stub files, recalling to a staging area the select data blocks from the secondary storage device corresponding to each of the identified second stub files; and following said recalling, restoring the replication data from the one or more snapshots at least in part by: restoring the select data blocks that were recalled to the staging area and not the second stub files of the one or more snapshots that correspond to the recalled select data blocks; restoring the first stub files of the one or more snapshots; and restoring the non-stub file data from the one or more snapshots, the restored replication data comprising each of the first stub files of the one or more snapshots and comprising none of the second stub files of the one or more snapshots.