Patent ID: 8595237

Claim:
A machine implemented method for a storage system, comprising: configuring a data storage volume for collecting metadata for a plurality of data containers stored at the data storage volume when a first snapshot of the data storage volume is generated; wherein the metadata includes an attribute that is associated with the plurality of data containers and the metadata comprises a baseline image for a searchable data structure; configuring a storage volume as a catalog volume for storing metadata associated with the plurality of data containers; collecting metadata for the plurality of data containers by a processor executable metadata collection module executed by the plurality of computing nodes; wherein after the first snapshot is generated for the data storage volume, metadata is collected only for data containers that were changed after the first snapshot was generated; pre-processing the collected metadata by extracting one or more fields from the collected metadata by a processor executable catalog module executed by the plurality of computing nodes; and storing the pre-processed metadata in the searchable data structure for responding to a user query requesting information regarding the plurality of data containers; wherein the searchable data structure is stored at the catalog volume by the catalog module and includes a first searchable segment for storing metadata for a plurality of directory entries of the data storage volume and a second searchable segment for storing metadata for non-directory based data containers stored at the storage volume; and wherein each entry in the second searchable segment stores a reference to a parent entry in the first searchable segment such that a storage path of each entry in the second searchable segment can be obtained from the reference to the parent entry in the first searchable segment without having to store individual storage paths for the non-directory based data containers at the second searchable segment.