Patent ID: 7072915

Claim:
A bulk copy method, comprising operations of: creating a copy-on-write relationship between specified source data and an original image cache for updates from at least one designated host application, where responsive to at least a first update of each item of source data, an original image of said updated item of source data and its associated location are written to the original image cache; after completing the creating operation, utilizing an application outboard of the designated host application to copy all items of source data and their associated locations to a secondary data object without regard to whether the items of source data have been updated since creating the copy-on-write relationship; copying a specified amount of contents of the original image cache to the secondary data object, the specified amount of comprises contents of the original image cache as of completion of the utilizing operation; permitting the copy-on-write relationship to continue during the utilizing operation and during at least part of the copying operation.