Abstract: Systems and methods are provided to manage a storage object in a data backup storage mechanism, which stores multiple versions of a data file received from a data source. To efficiently manage storage in the storage object, determinations may be made as to whether a number of free data blocks (i.e., data blocks available for re-use) of the storage object exceeds a threshold and whether a data block(s) of the data file corresponding to a valid data block(s) of the storage object has not been modified in at least a number of previous versions of the data file. Responsive to a result of one or both of these determinations, data in the valid data block(s) may be copied to unused data block(s) in another storage object, and the status of the valid data block(s) is updated to free data block(s) such that all blocks in the storage object are free data blocks.