Lockless management of deduplicated data using reference tags

In one embodiment, a method includes creating a data extent catalog table including information related to data extents stored to computer readable storage media, receiving a query related to a first data extent, and determining whether the data extent is stored to the one or more computer readable storage media based on analysis of the data extent catalog table. Moreover, the method includes determining whether the first data extent is eligible for deletion based on a first sliding window time period. In addition, the method includes determining whether the first data extent is eligible for linkage based on a second sliding window time period.