Patent ID: 8868882

Claim:
A method implemented at least in part by a computer, the method comprising: receiving an indication of a virtual storage address space; dividing the virtual storage address space into fixed-sized chunks; receiving data from a data source; receiving address information associated with the data; determining at least one of the chunks based on the address information and a block address translation table that maps from blocks of a file system volume to physical addresses of a storage device; providing the data corresponding to the at least one of the chunks to a storage system; updating a data structure to map from the address information to an identifier that identifies the at least one of the chunks to the storage system; merging a first backup set and a second backup set stored on the storage system by sending a message to delete one or more blocks of the first backup set to the storage system and sending metadata to the storage system that indicates that other of the blocks of the first backup set are to be included in the second backup set; and generating metadata regarding a backup dataset that includes the at least one of the chunks and providing the metadata regarding the backup dataset to the storage system prior to sending the at least one of the chunks, the metadata regarding the backup dataset indicating a location of the at least one of the chunks, the metadata regarding the backup dataset is used for obtaining the at least one chunk from the backup dataset even if other data of the backup dataset is not stored on the storage system.