A system and method for replacing an original linear object with an updated linear object. In a flash memory or other memory device storing groups of data objects, in replacing a linear object with an updated linear object of the same size, the present invention overwrites the original linear object in the same memory space as the original version. As a result, updating the data requires erasing and writing of the block of flash memory cells where the data object is stored. A copy of the original linear object is stored so that the original version of the linear object is available for undoing the update and/or facilitating recovery if the updated linear object becomes corrupted.