DedupSnap: A lightweight snapshot backup system

The rapid increase in digital data from virtualization and cloud services has intensified the demand for both space-efficient and verifiable storage systems. Traditional full-image backups are grossly inadequate due to the wasted capacity and bandwidth, while offering little assurance regarding the integrity of the data. The application of deduplication and authenticated data structures offers a way forward since it reduces redundancy and enables tamper-evident verification. DedupSnap is a lightweight snapshot and backup framework that integrates content-defined chunking, SHA-256-based content-addressable storage, and deterministic Merkle-root manifests to create compact, auditable snapshots. This survey reviews the key building blocks behind such systems, including chunking algorithms, indexing and garbage-collection strategies, Merkle-tree engineering, and retrievability proofs like Proofs of Retrievability (PoR). We analyze trade-offs between throughput, deduplication ratio, and audit cost, and outline open challenges in adaptive chunking, index compaction, privacy-preserving deduplication, and audit–GC co-design. By bridging storage efficiency with verifiable integrity, DedupSnap shows how cryptographic proofs and deduplication can jointly enable scalable, privacy-aware, and tamper-evident backup solutions for compliance-sensitive environments.