Patent ID: 8805789

Claim:
A computer program product for backing-up a file system in communication with a backup storage, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therein that executes to perform operations, the operations comprising: performing a point-in-time backup of files in the file system as of a point-in-time; generating a metadata image of the file system including information on files and directories in the file system as of the point-in-time; determining whether each of the files in the point-in-time backup has a size less than a size threshold; storing content of the files to backup in the metadata image that have the size less than the size threshold, wherein the files having the size less than the size threshold can be restored from the content of the files stored in the metadata image; backing-up the files in the point-in-time backup to the backup storage; providing a backup database having records on the files backed-up from the file system in the backup storage, wherein each record in the backup database has a unique identifier for each backed-up file and a location of the backed-up file in the backup storage; generating an archive instance including a copy of the database records for the files in the point-in-time backup; and associating the metadata image and the archive instance for the point-in-time backup.