Storage Management System and Method

A computer program product residing on a computer readable medium having a plurality of instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

• maintaining a pointer quantity count for each of a plurality of virtual mapping groups, wherein each virtual mapping group is associated with a duplicative data portion within a storage platform and each pointer quantity count defines the number of pointers included within the corresponding virtual mapping group;
• and
• obtaining a hash value for a specific duplicative data portion associated with a specific virtual mapping group if a specific pointer quantity count for the specific virtual mapping group is reduced to zero.

A computing system including a processor and memory configured to perform operations comprising:

• maintaining a pointer quantity count for each of a plurality of virtual mapping groups, wherein each virtual mapping group is associated with a duplicative data portion within a storage platform and each pointer quantity count defines the number of pointers included within the corresponding virtual mapping group;
• and
• obtaining a hash value for a specific duplicative data portion associated with a specific virtual mapping group if a specific pointer quantity count for the specific virtual mapping group is reduced to zero.