Patent ID: 8407191

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of ensuring access to data stored in a deduplicated data store, the deduplicated data store including data storage storing deduplicated data objects and pointers to the deduplicated data objects from source data objects for sharing of the deduplicated data objects among the source data objects, the data storage also storing attributes of the deduplicated data objects, the method comprising a data processor executing computer instructions stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium to perform the steps of: (a) programming the data processor with a condition for enabling priority data scrubbing based on the value of at least one attribute of the de-duplicated data objects; and (b) scanning the stored attributes of the deduplicated data objects while applying the condition to the value of said at least one attribute for each of the deduplicated data objects, and when the scanning of the stored attributes finds that the condition is satisfied for the value of said at least one attribute of at least one of the deduplicated data objects, performing a priority data scrubbing operation upon said at least one of the deduplicated data objects; wherein the value of said at least one attribute of said at least one of the deduplicated data objects is a reference count indicating how many of the source data objects share said at least one of the deduplicated data objects, and the applying of the condition to the value of said at least one attribute for each of the deduplicated data objects compares the value of said at least one attribute for each of the deduplicated data objects to a threshold.