Patent ID: 8401995

Claim:
A computer program product for removing a file within a redirect-on-write file system, the computer program product comprising: a computer readable storage medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to, detect, in a file management unit residing in a memory unit, a file removal operation, wherein a portion of the file is part of a consistency snapshot residing in a main memory, and wherein a portion of the file resides in persistent storage; detect, in the file management unit, a number of free data block in the persistent storage is below a minimum threshold; detect, in the file management unit, the file removal operation was successfully written in a log for storing system operations; move a plurality of data blocks from the file selected for removal to a list of free data blocks, wherein the list of free data blocks identifies available data blocks in the persistent storage; move a plurality of indirect blocks from the file selected for removal to a data block removal list, wherein the data block removal list identifies data blocks in persistent storage that will be available after the consistency snapshot is written to the persistent storage; and utilize, in the memory unit, a plurality of indirect blocks, wherein said indirect blocks contain a plurality of data for the file and the indirect blocks are indirectly connected to a file structure.