Internally, a production file system and each of its related snapshot file systems have a common file system identifier (fid') and a unique respective file system identifier (fsid'). Externally, the production file system and each of its related snapshot file systems has a common file system identifier (fsid) and a unique respective file identifier (fid). For example, the "fsid" and "fid" for the production and snapshot file systems are interchanged between a client-server protocol layer and a logical volume layer in a file server. Moreover, the file handle for an object indicates whether an object is in either a production file system that is not configured to have related snapshots, a production file system that is configured to have related snapshots, or a snapshot file system. When the object is in a snapshot file system, the file handle also indicates the related production file system.