US 12,277,139 B2
Storage space determinations for snapshots
Tessa DeMuth, Ft. Collins, CO (US); Matthew S. Gates, Houston, TX (US); Monica Jane Kinney, Boise, ID (US); and Christopher Robert Nichols, Meridian, ID (US)
Assigned to Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, Spring, TX (US)
Filed by HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT LP, Spring, TX (US)
Filed on Apr. 27, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/308,312.
Prior Publication US 2024/0362249 A1, Oct. 31, 2024
Int. Cl. G06F 16/27 (2019.01); G06F 16/23 (2019.01)
CPC G06F 16/27 (2019.01) [G06F 16/2365 (2019.01); G06F 16/2379 (2019.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that upon execution cause a system to:
maintain, for a base storage structure and a collection of snapshots associated with the base storage structure, statistics relating to usage of storage space based on data of the base storage structure and the collection of snapshots;
check metadata of a first snapshot to determine validity of references in the metadata and a presence of any child of the first snapshot or a grandparent of the first snapshot;
add, based on the validity of the references in the metadata and the presence of any child or grandparent of the first snapshot, a hint comprising a flag set to a first value to a metadata entry of a parent of the first snapshot, the flag set to the first value indicating that a metadata entry of the child or the grandparent is to be checked for determining whether shared storage space becomes storage space uniquely used by a second snapshot; and
update the statistics relating to usage of storage space by checking the metadata entry of the child or the grandparent based on the flag set to the first value.