A system and method are provided for migrating data files from a source file volume to a target file volume, wherein a target file volume is generated on a target storage device, and a target directory is created based on a directory in the source file volume. In addition, for each file stored in the source file volume, a corresponding stub file is created in the target file volume. The target file volume is mounted to enable a host to access data stored in the target file volume. Files are then copied from the source file volume to the target file volume. In one embodiment, a data processing request is received from the host specifying a stub file stored in the target file volume, a file in the source file volume is identified that corresponds to the specified stub file, and the file is copied from the source file volume to the target file volume. Requested data is retrieved from the copied file and provided to the host.