Patent ID: 8103622

Claim:
A method for monitoring a rate of change on a volume storing application data, comprising: monitoring, by a storage server system executing a host application, the rate of change of an active file system, wherein the monitoring comprises determining a snap-delta by comparing a size of a snapshot with a size of a subsequent snapshot to determine the rate of change at a current time; comparing the rate of change of the active file system to a predetermined rate of change threshold; responsive to the rate of change having reached the predetermined rate of change threshold, issuing an alert to an administrator of the server system; responsive to the rate of change not having reached the rate of change threshold, comparing a space required to create a next snapshot to an amount of available overwrite reserve space on the volume; and responsive to the space required to create the next snapshot having not reached the amount of available overwrite reserve space on the volume, writing the next snapshot to the volume.