Patent ID: 7624335

Claim:
A method for verifying a file in a system with duplicate segment elimination comprising: segmenting a data file into a plurality of distinct data segments storing the data file in a data storage system, wherein storing the data file comprises checking to determine whether one or more of the plurality of distinct data segments is the same as a data segment that has been stored previously in the data storage system, and in the event that one of the plurality of distinct data segments is not the same as a segment already stored, storing the one of the plurality of distinct data segments, and in the event that one of the plurality of distinct data segments is the same as a data segment that has been stored previously in the data storage system, storing a reference to the data segment that has been stored previously in place of the one of the plurality of distinct data segments; computing, using a processor, a checksum for each of the plurality of distinct data segments; constructing a constructed data file checksum from the checksums of each of the plurality of distinct data segments; and determining if a checksum of the data file is the same as the constructed data file checksum.