METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING INACTIVE SNAPSHOT BLOCKS

Method and system are provided for managing inactive snapshot blocks. Information regarding inactive blocks is collected and placed in a queue. After the queue reaches a threshold number of inactive blocks, the inactive blocks are compressed and stored as a compressed segment. The compressed segment may include inactive blocks for different snapshot data structures. A compression map structure stores information regarding a plurality of compressed segments, including identifiers identifying different snapshot files which may point to one or more inactive blocks. For each compressed segment, a compression information map identifies the location of each inactive block within the compressed segment and the compression state for each inactive block.