Abstract: One embodiment provides a method for storage management in a hierarchical file system. The method includes tracking directories for sub-file systems of the hierarchical set of file systems and maintaining a corresponding directory in a top-file system and a number of symbolic pointers in the corresponding directory which each point from the corresponding directory to a sub-file system where any portion of the tracked directory resides. If available space in a first sub-file system is below a threshold, the system identifies a second sub-file system with available space above the threshold, wherein the first sub-file system contains a first portion of the directory. If a second portion of the directory does not exist in the second sub-file system, the system creates the second portion of the directory in the second sub-file system and creates a link from the first portion of the directory to the second portion of the directory.

Abstract: One embodiment provides a method for storage management in an aggregated file system. The method includes tracking inode numbers for sub-file systems of the aggregated file system. A request for a unique range of inode numbers in the aggregated file system is received. The unique range of inode numbers is provided to one or more sub-file systems of the aggregated file system while providing that each sub-file system of the aggregated file system has a required range of inode numbers and that no two sub-file systems have overlapping inode numbers.

Abstract: One embodiment provides a method for storage management in a hierarchical file system. The method includes tracking directories for sub-file systems of the hierarchical file system. A request for creation of an additional directory in the hierarchical file system is received. In response to the request, the additional directory is created in a sub-file system of the hierarchical file system while providing that each directory resides in only one sub-file system. If the additional directory is a child directory, the additional directory is created in the sub-file system containing the parent directory of the child directory.

Abstract: A non-transitory computer-readable storage device includes instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to receive a sequence of hashes. Next, the one or more processors are further caused to determine locations of previously stored copies of a subset of the data chunks corresponding to the hashes. The one or more processors are further caused to group hashes and corresponding data chunks into segments based in part on the determined information. The one or more processors are caused to choose, for each segment, a store to deduplicate that segment against. Finally, the one or more processors are further caused to combine two or more segments chosen to be deduplicated against the same store and deduplicate them as a whole using a second index.