Patent ID: 8572728

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by a processor of a computing device, the storage medium comprising: instructions for receiving an indication to initiate a new scan of a storage device accessible to the computing device; instructions for accessing a record of existing scans of the storage device to determine whether to initiate the new scan, the record of existing scans including an entry for each in-progress scan of the storage device and comprising, for each existing scan, an identifier of the scan, an identifier of the process that initiated the scan, an indicator specifying whether the scan is currently in progress, a date and time at which the scan initiated or will be initiated, and an estimated duration for completing the scan; instructions for initiating the new scan when the record of existing scans indicates that a total number of in-progress scans of the storage device is less than a predetermined threshold, and updating the record of existing scans to include an entry for the new scan when the new scan is initiated; and instructions for at least one of notifying a respective process of a particular time at which the respective process may attempt to initiate the new scan and notifying the respective process at a later time when the new scan can be started based on completion of one or more existing scans by other scanning processes, wherein: the record of existing scans identifies an estimated time of completion of each in-progress scan, and the instructions for initiating the new scan begin the new scan at an earliest estimated time of completion.