Emulated storage system

1. A synthetic full back-up data set comprising:

a set of indicators, each indicator of the set of indicators identifying a storage location, in one of an existing full back-up data set and at least one incremental back-up data set, of a most recent copy of a plurality of data files;

wherein the existing full back-up data set comprises a stored copy of at least one of the plurality of data files; and

wherein the at least one incremental back-up data set comprises a stored copy of remaining ones of the plurality of data files.

2. A method comprising acts of:

creating a full back-up data set comprising a first plurality of data files;

creating at least one incremental back-up data set comprising a second plurality of data files;

determining a most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files;

storing a set of indicators, each indicator in the set of indicators identifying a storage location in one of the full back-up data set and the at least one incremental back-up data set of the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files; and

creating a synthetic full back-up data set that corresponds to the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files based upon the set of indicators and without copying data from the most recent copy of each data file.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising an act of storing metadata associated with each data file in each of the first and second pluralities of data files in a searchable metadata cache.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the act of determining the most recent copy includes analyzing metadata associated with each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files to determine the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files.

5. The method of claim 3 , further comprising an act of providing an interface to allow a user to search the searchable metadata cache to locate the most recent copy of at least one data file in one of the first and second pluralities of data files.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the act of providing an interface includes an act of providing an interface that permits the user to download and restore the most recent copy of the at least one data file using the interface.

7. The method of claim 2 , further comprising an act of analyzing the existing full back-up data set to provide a first list of each data file in the first plurality of data files.

8. The method of claim 2 , further comprising an act of analyzing the at least one incremental back-up data set to provide a second list of each data file in the second plurality of data files.

9. The method as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the first plurality of data files includes a first data file and wherein the second plurality of data files includes a modified copy of the first data file.

10. The method as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the second plurality of data files includes at least one data file, a version of which is not included in the first plurality of data files.

11. A back-up storage system comprising

a back-up storage media for storing the first and second pluralities of data files; and

a controller including at least one processor configured to execute a set of instructions implementing the method of claim 2 .

12. A computer readable medium encoded with a plurality of instructions that when executed on at least one processor implement the method of claim 2 .

13. The computer readable medium as claimed in claim 12 , wherein the processor is included in a back-up storage system.

14. The method of claim 2 , wherein the synthetic full back-up data set is a first synthetic full back-up data set, the method further comprising:

creating a second synthetic full back-up data set that corresponds to the first synthetic full back-up data set, the second synthetic full back-up data set including a plurality of first indicators of the set of indicators, each first indicator of the plurality of first indicators identifying a respective storage location where the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files is stored in the full back-up data set, and a copy of the data from the most recent copy of each data file in the at least one incremental back-up data set.

15. The method of claim 2 , wherein the synthetic full back-up data set is a first synthetic full back-up data set, the method further comprising:

creating a second synthetic full back-up data set that corresponds to the first synthetic full back-up data set including a copy of the data from the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files stored in the full back-up data set and a copy of the data from the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files stored in the at least one incremental back-up data set.

16. A method of creating a synthetic full back-up data set from an existing full back-up data set comprising a first plurality of data files, and an incremental back-up data set comprising a second plurality of data files, the method comprising acts of:

determining a most recent copy of the each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files;

storing a set of indicators, each indicator of the set of indicators identifying a storage location in one of the existing full back-up data set and the incremental back-up data set of the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files; and

creating the synthetic full back-up data set that corresponds to the most recent copy of each data file of the first and second pluralities of data files based upon the set of indicators and without copying data from the most recent copy of each data file.

17. In a back-up storage system, a method of locating backed-up data files on the storage system, the method comprising:

providing a user interface;

storing metadata corresponding to the backed-up data files in a searchable storage medium; and

using the metadata to present on the user interface, a directory structure of the data files stored on the storage system.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising steps of:

authenticating a user; and presenting the directory structure based at least in part on the authenticating step.

19. In a back-up storage system, a method of locating a backed-up data file on the storage system, the method comprising:

storing a set of indicators that identify storage locations of each of a plurality of backed-up data files on the storage system, each indicator in the set of indicators corresponding to one data file of the plurality of data files; and

providing a user interface that enables a user to locate the backed-up data file based on the set of indicators.