Patent ID: 7567994

Claim:
A computer implemented method for automatically tracking changes in metadata for a file system, the computer implemented method comprising: responsive to an event, identifying a change in the metadata in the file system; updating a set of sparse objects with the change in the metadata, wherein the set of sparse objects tracks changes in the metadata, wherein the set of sparse objects includes at least one of an initial sparse object and at least one of a plurality of delta sparse objects, wherein units of data in the file system containing file system control structures are written to the initial sparse object, wherein units of data in the file system containing metadata are written to one of the plurality of delta sparse objects, and wherein units of data in the file system containing user data are not copied to any sparse object; compressing the set of sparse objects to form dense diagnostic data, wherein a sparse object comprises a number of null pointers, and wherein the number of null pointers are compressed when the set of sparse objects are compressed to form the dense diagnostic data; and transmitting the dense diagnostic data to another system.