US Patent 11775476 Techniques for snapshotting scalable multitier storage structures

Examples described herein generally relate to maintaining a snapshot of a multitier distributed file system. A snapshot directory volume of a directory volume can be created at least in part by copying, to the snapshot directory volume, metadata of the directory volume. Based on a file access request, it can be determined whether the file has not been snapshotted. If not, a snapshot file record of the file, and associated with the snapshot directory volume.