Patent attributes
A data processing system archives local snapshots of a primary storage object to cloud storage by dividing an address space of the snapshots into sequential chunks, and organizing the cloud storage into archived snapshots including sets of cloud objects created from respective modified chunks of local snapshots. The archived snapshots are organized into families each having a full snapshot and incremental snapshots. A new family is started by creating a synthesized full snapshot from the archived snapshots of a preceding family, which includes (1) for chunks whose data is contained within one cloud object of the preceding family, logically incorporating the cloud object into the synthesized full snapshot, and (2) for chunks whose data is contained within multiple cloud objects of the preceding family, coalescing the data of the cloud objects into a new cloud object and logically incorporating the new cloud object into the synthesized full snapshot.