Systems, Method, and Computer Program Products Providing Sparse Snapshots

A network-based storage system comprising a memory and at least one processor, in which the processor is configured to access instructions from the memory and perform the following operations:

• creating a copy of an active file system, the copy including at least a portion of metadata in the active file system and a portion of user data in the active file system, in which creating a copy of the active file system includes:
• omitting blocks of the metadata and blocks of the user data from the copy based on a type of the user data and a type of the metadata in the blocks;
• comparing the copy to a previous snapshot of the active file system to identify differences between the copy and the snapshot;
• and
• sending portions of the copy that correspond to the differences to a data destination.

A computer program product having a computer readable medium tangibly recording computer program logic for performing data replication in a computer-based storage system, the computer program product comprising:

• code to begin a snapshot creation process for an active file system at a consistency point;
• code to discern data types in respective data storage blocks in the active file system;
• code to create a first snapshot that omits portions of user data and portions of metadata responsive to discerning the data types;
• and
• code to compare the first snapshot to a second snapshot to identify new data to send to a destination.