Patent attributes
Techniques for sanitizing a storage system are described herein. In one embodiment, for each file stored in the storage system, a list of fingerprints representing data chunks of the file is obtained. In such an embodiment, for each of the fingerprints, identifying a first container storing a data chunk corresponding to the fingerprint is identified, and determining a storage location of the first container in which the data chunk is stored is determined. In one embodiment, a bit in copy bit vector (CBV) is populated based on the identified container and the storage location. In one embodiment, after all of the bits corresponding to the data chunks of the first container have been populated in the CBV, data chunks represented by the CBV are copied from the first container to a second container, and records of the data chunks in the first container are erased.