Patent ID: 7467167

Claim:
A method for coalescing a plurality of snapshots from a plurality of individual file systems to a destination file system, comprising: creating a plurality of directories within the destination file system, each of the plurality of directories being associated with one of the plurality of snapshots of differing file systems, where each differing file system is associated with a separate client computer, the plurality of directories are stored in a single volume, each snapshot being a copy of a root inode of each client file system at a selected time, the root inode being a file describing an inode file associated with the each client file system; replicating the plurality of snapshots of differing file system in the plurality of directories, each of the snapshots being replicated in a directory associated with the snapshot; generating a snapshot of the entire destination file system, wherein each of the snapshots of differing file systems is included in the snapshot of the destination file system; storing the snapshot of the entire destination file system on one or more storage devices; and managing the replicating of the plurality of snapshots of differing file systems according to a user-defined methodology, wherein the user-defined methodology includes updating the replicating of the plurality of snapshots of differing file system at a user-defined interval.