Fingerprints datastore and stale fingerprint removal in de-duplication environments

A storage server comprising:

• a network interface through which to communicate over a network;
• a storage interface through which to communicate with a storage device;
• a processor coupled to the network interface and the storage interface;
• a memory storing code which configures the processor to cause the storage server to perform a communication process that comprises generating a fingerprint for each data block stored in the storage device, wherein a fingerprint entry for each fingerprint generated is stored in a changelog file;
• creating a fingerprints datastore divided into a primary datastore and a secondary datastore, wherein entries in the primary datastore comprises a single entry for each unique fingerprint identified as not corresponding to a duplicate data block and the secondary datastore comprises an entry for each fingerprint identified as corresponding to a duplicate data block;
• merging entries in the changelog file with the entries in the primary datastore to identify duplicate data blocks in the storage device;
• freeing the identified duplicate data blocks in the storage device;
• storing the entries that correspond to the freed data blocks to a third datastore;
• and
• overwriting the primary datastore with the entries from the merged entries that correspond to the unique fingerprints to create an updated primary datastore,
• wherein, when a request for a de-duplication operation is received during execution of a verify operation, the processor suspends the verify operation while the de-duplication operation is executing and subsequently resumes the verify operation upon completion of the de-duplication operation, and wherein the suspension of the verify operation comprises the processor marking the primary datastore as read-only, storing the verify operation in a current state to a storage device, and adding a message to a queue representing the suspended verify operation.